I'm installing my car audio system in the morning. I have a 650w 4 channel amp for my four interior speakers and a class D monoblock amp for my sub.I have an 8awg wiring kit. If I split that to use it on both amps, it would end up at 16awg going to the amps. Is this thick enough for my setup?
1. We can't answer without knowing more about your amplifiers. 650w 4 channel doesn't tell us anything useful, because the power rating may be a peak number that's only good for marketing, and you didn't tell us anything about the monoblock amplifier at all. Give us brand and model numbers and we might be able to help. 2. If I split that to use it on both amps, it would end up at 16awg going to the amps ....no. That's now how it works. (I'm not sure how you envision splitting the wire to make two wires that are half the size; are you cutting it down the middle with a razor?) You can use a distribution block to connect both amplifiers to the same main power wire, but you don't have to go to a smaller wire out of the d-block: you can run 8-gauge wire from the battery to the distribution block, then more 8-gauge from the d-block to each amp. 3. Even if you did cut the 8-gauge wire in half, a wire half the size of 8-gauge isn't 16-gauge. It's 11-gauge. If you put six 16-gauge wires together, you'd get a wire that's a little smaller than 8-gauge. Please edit your question with the brand and model numbers of both amplifier, along with the estimated length of the wire run (ie, how many feet of wire do you need to go between the amps and the battery?) Then we can tell you what gauge wire you need. Edit: thanks for the update. Based on the information about your amplifiers, I don't think you should run both of them from the single 8-gauge wire. I'd switch to a 4-gauge dual amp kit, or you can buy a second 8-gauge kit and run each amp with its own power wire to the battery rather than sharing a single wire.
