For those of you that use watertraps, i got a question.

ok sweet, so it could be the fact that i only have two ground that is causing it to not hold a charge?

i personally would run two batteries. they sell a yellow top that is smaller than the regular size so you can tuck it away somewhere. they are supposed to be batteries for a civic. and make sure where you grounded it is clean metal.

It's kinda like running a pressure washer that consumes 5 gallons a minute, but it's hooked up to a hose pipe that only flows 3. You would benefit from running two batteries and a battery isolation kit. It would let your alt. charge both batteries at the same time, but you could dedicate certain systems (air management) to just one of the batteries and your essential systems (like your engine) on the other. The isolator kit would keep the battery with the lowest charge from sucking the other one dry.

Its so funny how water traps became eletrical, BUT, its all good !

Great points, all of them, the 2nd battery & isolator and upgrade of the ground cables will help ALOT. Your compressors are stealing the cidle charging current, not to mention, that when your idling, your not putting out 160 amps, so add your 40 amps, your 20 or so operating system usage, your stereo/ amps just being on drawing 10 amps or a lil more and youve quickly met what the ALT is putting out. Ide be willing to bet, you dont have that problem at max charge RPM, your just sucking the life right outta the battery, good thing itsa Optima, it can fully discharge and recharge many times, a regular battery would feak out if submitted to that abuse. Your heading in the right direction man! Youve found your problem, now you just got to solve it. Tunes or air HMM! Ide take both please, do your upgrades youll be fine, storage and accurate " when needed " amperage distribution is what your going for. . .

Very interesting, I'll look into the isolation kit. I agree that the isolation would work, however I really have no money right now and also, I think its odd that before i had the optima and before i got my compressors I was running 3, 380c viair compressors and my system, all on my stock alternator before i even upgraded to the 160 amp, (and that is since i bought the truck until a month ago when i decided to upgrade the alt) all that was running off of a interstate battery. Just a few days ago I had the optima recharged and i didnt use it for a few days then i hooked it up to my truck (this is after the battery wire relocated to bed and big three upgrade) and it was dead as a doorknob, my truck didnt even crank over. Yesterday I relooked everything over, all the wire i ran to the back, and there is no drainage anywhere HOWEVER I did notice something that MIGHT be the problem. Ok currently my compressors are ran like this, theres two viair 480c comps both the positive wires of the comps go to a 80amp relay, and from the relay there is a 3 or 4 gauge (main compressor power wire) that runs all the way back up to the front to my fusebox and bolts to the same 80amp fuse that my alternator runs off of, I am wondering if the compressors are just taking the energy out of the alternators power when in reality the main compressor power wire coming from the Relay should be ran to the positive battery post with an 80amp fuse inline with it?
heres a picture i took from suicide doors to show exactly how my compressors are wired with the EXCEPTION of the red wire in the diagram that goes to the + bettery terminal, on my setup that is the one that goes to the 80amp fuse that the alternator also runs off of like i explained above.

(THE BOTTOM WIRING DIAGRAM NOT THE TOP ONE:



and heres a little picture i took of the main compressor power wire coming off the 80amp fuse in the fusebox along with the 4g wire going to the alternator



I appreciate all the help despite my overwhelming amount of questions haha, I just finished completely redoing the whole air system and it runs beautifully until my battery dies LOL this truck is my daily and i need it up and running quick here thats why im asking alot of ?'s, i do not have any more money to dump into getting a second battery right now . the help is much appreciated. if anyone of you have msn messenger let me know itd be alot faster, i got a good job interview coming up and i need my truck running to get to it.

alright, i figure out the problem, i just needed to run the truck a little and get the alt charging the battery, it runs fine now.