Read the part on "WIRE"(scroll down the right side ) on the link below. Theres something called circular mils that addresses the exact question you have and warns about using too small a guage for even short runs( can cause wire insulation to melt at full power).


http://www.bcae1.com/

Voltage drop at 90 amps across 3ft of 8 ga is only about 1/8 of a volt; add in your ground and you're up to 1/4. Might not seem like a lot, but at 2 bux a ft for 6 ft. of 4 ga.....
http://www.stealth316.com/2-wire-resistance.htm

You wouldn't buy a Ferrari and put Motomaster tires on it. You could, but you wouldn't be able to achieve maximum performance out of it. SAme with wire in an amp, will it work? Probably, but you either will not achieve maximum performance, or your amp will not last as long as it could have.

car terh i think your a little out there saying its going to distroy the subs and make the amp occilate

i agree that it should be 4 guage all the way
worse case senario his amp won't do its full power

It depends on how much your going to be pushing your amp really. I mean I've got an amp that is rated at 120AMPs for a fuse and I wire it with a 4guage, which is fine beacuse I don't push the amp very hard. For such a small run I'd invest in the 4g personally, it just makes life much easier and its not really that expensive.\

Edit: after re-reading your post I don't know exactly what your trying to accomplish with the distro block? Do you have 2 amps? If you've only got 1 amp theres no need to put a distro block in, unless you're powering other components as well? If you've got 2 amps and all together they do 800wrms then the 8g would be fine to each amp, 4g would be better, but 8g will do.

If you haven't bought all the stuff yet when you do ask the guy if he can maybe toss you a couple of 4g scraps. In our shop we have a whole bucket full of 4g lengths that just get trimmed when we do installs.

[ May 21, 2005, 05:42 PM: Message edited by: Ryan231 ]

Probably be ok, but good lord how much does 3 feet of 4 awg cost any ways?
$6.00 for some peace of mind is a great deal.

Thats odd. Im running 700WRMS 2 amps with 60A rating on each. I was running basically a 4 guage split into 2 4's to each amp. THe power wire was a power acousik 2 gauge yes the coating was thicker than the 4s i was splitting into BUT the copper was just a bit more than the 4s.

I don't know why but every shop i went to swore that even though my 2 gauge is cheap arse that a 4 gauge to the back and 2 8s to each amp woudl be more than enough. With this setup i was getting insane amount of dimming at about 27/35 volume.

I routed some 0 gauge to the back 2 days ago and WOW all dimming is gone i mean ALL. I can crank it all the way to 32/35 before seeing dimming and its pretty slight dimming at these volumes.

Does anyone know why i got such a huge differnce from the wiring?

thicker wire means more current for the amplifier.. when the amp is stressed for power it will draw more than it's supposed to. You're small power wire wasn't enough for your setup and your amps were drawing more than they could carry, your electical system was getting strained from the load from your amps causing a lack of power for other components, ie- lights.

^^did you also upgrade your grounds to 0 guage? If not it does not make sense that you get less dimming now when essentially you are using more power from your electrical system for your amps. This should result in a greater voltage drop at the headlights and therefore more dimming, unless you upgraded the ground wires also( the big three) which can then make the system more efficient and allow for less voltage drop overall.

you have that backward bigger wire creates more voltage and less current
really in this post were splitting hairs
i have seen many setup that worked just fine with stupidly small wire that was fire hazard material
using 8 guage is going to cause a slight voltage lost probably not even enough to notice
as i said i have seen lots of large amps using copper traces inside
not 4 guage
so what gives