Honda Car Forum

I have a 1993 Acura Integra, it has a $3000 douns system in it, with 3 subs and the deck, but the car ahs to be running or the car will die in 30 seconds, what's going on, it shouldn't do this that quick should it?oh, oops, it's not a 1993 it's a 1995.

you need another battery, bigger power wire, larger alternator and a capacitor.

Get a new alternator. Seems if your car starts up after it dies, your battery is ok. i would still have it tested / charge it anyway. Your sound system costs more than the car. I love the car though. Too bad you forget the year of your car.

It probably draws a lot of power, the only fix is extra batteries and a second or third alternator. My brother in laws stereo in his chevy truck will kill a battery very quickly as well, he uses 4 Stinger 2150 batteries and 2 extra alternators just for the stereo.

more batteries and bigger alternator, better grounds also help too

You will need two yellow top battery with a capacitor.

When the car is running it uses the alternator for power while it charges the battery and uses the battery for as a form of capacitor. With the car not running, all power comes from the battery. Honda/Acura cars are easy to start even with a battery that is defective in some way. As long at it gets enough juice to turn the starter, that car will probably start. However, it is obvious that your battery is not in top shape and your stereo is taxing it in a big way.With $3,000 in stereo equipment, you should opt for an Optima Gel Cell battery with as large a capacity as the car can fit. You should also install a 1 farad capacitor to store even more energy.But... let's just say your stereo install didn't go quite right... and there is a load on your battery even with the stereo off... one you don't know about... you should test the draw on your battery from the stereo system with the stereo system turned off. Again with the system just turned on with no volume, and then again with the volume cranked up.If the amperage draw is normal though high, you can calculate the amp-hours simply by multiplying the amperage by the number of hours used, typically figured at one hour. So a 20 amp draw for one hour would be 20 amp-hours. If you have a 50 AH battery, you could expect it to last 2.5 hours before it couldn't supply the juice anymore. And, this is for new batteries! You must also figure that over the course of that 2.5 hours, power will diminish and you would have to keep turning up the volume as the available power declined.A second battery, connected in parallel with the first would help keep the system alive when the engine is off. Everything in normal working order though...Good luck!