Help me get rid of this engine noise before i shoot myself.

[raga55 10+ year member]

OK yesterday i installed a kenwood KAC-8401 to power my cdt 61-as in the front. This amp is mounted next to my pioneer Gmx-692(?) which powers my 2 rockford he2s. When the car is off and the pioneer's rcas are disconnected there is no noise. when the car is on there is a loud whistle/ screech which gets louder as the rpms increases. When the pioneer is connected and the engine is off there is a static like noise coming from the tweets and the subs **** in and out and make like a heart beat, with the engine on the whistle/ screech returns and the subs pump harder in the same manner. Overall its not possible to hear any music until the volume is all the way up and the whistle/screech is still audible until the system is cranked and then you can hear it in the background. The car is a 97 maxima, with a pioner deh p7500 hu, power wires are run down the drivers side, signals (2 rcas and 2 speaker wires) are run down the passenger side. Power wire is 4 guage into a distro block w/ 2 eight guages comin out. ground is 2 eight guages run into a block to a 4 guage. Ground is on sanded metal in trunk on the jack holder. PLEASE HELP ME!! so far this has been the install from hell!

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[tobz 10+ year member]

That my friend, is alternator whine. Basically.. I would try redo-ing your power wires. Run the grounds into a common point in your trunk, instead of a block first.

I would also recommend some high quality RCA's, I've noticed the thinner, cheaper RCA's to pickup some extra noise.

Possibly try grounding to a different point first.

 

[bigwheel15 10+ year member]

All I can think of is try grounding to somewhere else or try afew different spots.

Hope this helps.

 

[jlaudioaccord]

Make sure your ground and power wires are as far apart from each other/not touching each other, make sure you have a good ground to the chassis. Also, where all of your speaker wires are running, separate them as far as possible from each other and your power and ground wire. I recently had the same problem w/ my soundstream davinci after mounting that pain in the ***, the wires got tangles underneath and i had to redo them.

 

[forbidden 10+ year member]

Most cases it is a bad ground, Try a new grounding point in the back of the car, sometimes the bolt option is not the best as the weld connection to the chassis could be pretty crappy as well.

 

[raga55 10+ year member]

ok sounds like a plan im going to try and reground this weekend and see how that goes

 

[RH108]

Tobz is right you need really good grounding point and some quality rca's. I just recentlly installed my first high quality sound system and had no problems.

 

[slick rick 10+ year member]

ok sounds like a plan im going to try and reground this weekend and see how that goes

good luck!

 

[raga55 10+ year member]

ok i regrounded the amps to a bolt i put through the trunk floor in the spare tire well and i still have the noise, would upgrading the "big 3" help at all? is there anything else i can do? ive been reading the similar threads and "ground isolators" keep popping up what are these and would they be effective in this case?

 

[tobz 10+ year member]

Just a thought... do you get the same noise when your radio is off? It's not likely.. but it is possible that the noise isn't speaker related at all... just a thought to try and help.

Did you scrape any/all paint from around the area of the ground? Generally speaking, an isolator limits the direction of travel of electrical current.

I.E. - if you put one in between an alternator and a 2nd battery, you can allow the alternator to charge the 2nd battery, and DISALLOW your sound system from draining the main battery (not counting the H/U of course).

Feel free to try, but I always like to try other "free options" first //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif Like redoing the wires, etc.

 

[tobz 10+ year member]

One more thing to add.. where the wires go into the crossovers, and into the speakers (like where the tweeters connect to your main speaker wires, etc.) None of those wires are contacing bare metal in your car are they? That would be another possibility for the noise.

T.J.

 

[raga55 10+ year member]

i dont think the wiring to the x-overs/tweets are touching anything but it doesnt hurt to look i guess. also the noise is only when the h/u is switched on.

 

[justsayk 10+ year member]

make sure your power wire and RCA cables aren't too close together...i have had that problem before with lower grade RCA's...just make sure they have some distance between them.

 

[raga55 10+ year member]

i appreciate the response justsayk but in the first post in this thread i stated that the power and rcas were not to close....anyway i tuned the gain that helped somewhat, i think im gonna go ahead and get a ground loop isolator from radioshack see how that goes....

 

[homer3304 10+ year member]

The bolt you mentioned is probably not a good enough ground. When i get into bigger than 8 gauge i like to use a bolt directly into frame or something else really solid. I also gound everything to one point except for the bass amp. Another thought you might try is checking to see what kind of spark plugs you have. Maybe the owner before you used really cheap plugs that create noise.