Gains set too high?

I'm having a little problem with my amp. It's a four channel bridged to two and driving two subs. It should have ample power to handle the subs according to the specs. It seems to cut out after a relatively short time and is getting pretty hot. I have the gains (there are two) turned clockwise almost all the way. I have an eq/crossover before the amp which puts out 10V signal strength. After doing some reading I'm beginning the think the gains are not set properly. Gains adjust the sensitivity of the amp and not it's power output (I didn't know this). Could this cause the amp to cut out or get too hot? I believe I have a good ground, I'm running 8 gauge wire (old school ppi's have the wires built in), so I'm sure it's not the wires. Will turning the gains counter clockwise (there is no scale) lower the gains? Is that what I want? Thanks for you help.

The subs are 4 ohm pyles, dual coil. I verified with a multimeter that the impedence is 4 ohms on both speakers. The amp is an old PPI art series from the early nineties capable of running at 2 ohms.

Well, I did have the speakers wired in the configuration shown in the previous post, however I turned the gains way down to minimum, and so far so good. Have to test over a longer period of time to know for sure. Thanks for all the help until now.