Water Bear
Senior VIP Member
Thanks for the reply! I went ahead and did what Water Bear recommended just now and the amp powers on and ground is ground showing -63V and my power probe lights green! Amp is on and all leds!! Super happy but my question now is could I run my negative from the battery permanently?
Yes. Grounding on battery negative is debatably the best ground. Ideally the engine block, frame, chassis, and battery negative are all tied together. The idea with grounding on the chassis is that the current flow makes its way back to the battery negative by flowing through those different parts. In practice many vehicles have resistance along that path, especially between joints in th chassis or connections to the frame.
When the connection is bad enough car audio guys will sometimes run directly to battery negative. The way I deal with it is doing a big 3 type upgrade where you manually tie all the components together with big ol' ground wires. The engine block, chassis, battery negative, and alternator negative are all tied together in my Tahoe.