What the heck is a power capacitor and what is it for?? Thanks for the input. Is it needed for anything??

It basically stores a charge, and discharges when there's a big draw, aka bass hit. If you need one, you'll know, 'cause your lights and everything will dim whenever your bass hits. A cap will prevent that.

no it wont

What is a cap for then sweet? I presumed thats what it was for too, as my friend said he had to buy one for his dual 15's because of this same problem..

A power Capacitor, or cap as they are commanly known are a storage medium for power... so basicly they act as a battery, however a cap can fill and discharge much more quickly, so basicly what they are used for is when you have a lot of power being consumed by an amp in your car they help to even out the draw on your charging system, thus increasing the life of your batt, and alt, and usually giving you more output, they are also verry good at stopping your lights from diming... it can be anoying.. and heaty... :unsure: lol
it wont elimate the lights diming... but can help it all depends on what you are runing...

if you want the real explination go here... http://www.bcae1.com/
the cap one is #46 on the right...

^^^ nicely put

If you get a bigger alternator (more watts) it solves the problem of the lights dimming, correct?

^^^ yup thats the best way to go about it...... of course if u still running a ton of wattage in ur system...... say like 3000+..... its not gonna get rid of all of the dimming

Not allways... first off alternators charge in AMPS, not watts, the alternator will help, but moreso its a package that you should get if your runing more than 500watts rms...
If you really want to get an upgraded charging system its as follows...
1:bigger or multiple batt's, and or cap's
2:bigger/ multiple alternators
3:Bigger ground/positive( i cant stress this enuff.. ppl make a bigger power and charging wires, and HUGE grounds and positives to their amps... and the stock ground from the body to the frame and batt to the frame and batt to the block etc...sooo pointless unless you do it all... )

caps are paperweights unless you get like 5 farads. even then it aint helping enough. second battery(ISOLATED!) and new alt is usually the best route.we put a 250 amp alt, a second battery, and 5 farads of caps in a tbird and the lights still dim.

I am currently running a sony x-plod 52wx4 cd/radio in my dash and have an 800watt system (about to be replaced with a 1200watt system) and just recently noticed that on occasion it will flicker and the light on the snap off plate will go out, but the radio is still playing. I think this also might be due to the extremely cold weather here in indiana over the past couple weeks. I might add a cap for the extra power and looks. Hopefully I can find a stinkin digital camera to get some pics up soon.

Well on the power cap For every 500class d amp U have for Bass u will need at least 1 cap.

And for every 1000watt amp Class d u will need 5 farat cap.

Batter too will be needed with any BIG system as well a bigger wire.

But if ur just starting keep it smiple untill ur ready to make the junp to the Big boy level...:)

stay away from the cap...they messed my 2000. Car wouldnt start and blew the alternator. I recommend not getting one, go with the larger alternator

if you are going for any amount of good SPL caps are nothing more than a space hogging paper weight that you overpaid for to begin with.

you could throw it at someone. there's a good use