Ok im ready to fix the engine noise.

[iceberg]

I posted a few weeks ago about my engine noise most noticibaly coming in through my tweeters in the A pillar. I have JBL GTO series 6 1/2 componets drawing power from a alpine amp. And a 10 inch pioneer VCCS, in a custom box drawing power from a lightning audio amp. I made sure to keep speaker and RCA as far from power, and remote wire as possible. My best quess is its my ground or the alpine amp (I got lazy and mounted it directly to the sheet metal. There is a constant noise and what seems like a backround noise which changes according to engine rpm. When i turn the radio completly off the noise gets louder. So when i dont want to hear anything i just turn my headunit down to 0 and that almost completly eliminates it. Anyone with experience relating to engine noise please help a brother out.

Late

Click to read more...

 

[adamr3365]

I am having similar trouble in my 87 cavalier. Only when I shut off the head unit, or turn the volume down it gets rid of the noise.

 

[Phatillusion 5,000+ posts]

What kind of RCA's are you using?

 

[McCraperson 10+ year member]

try regrounding your HU to somewhere else...thats what i did and no more noise.....//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

 

[natem33 10+ year member]

Your noise problem is alternator whine. It seems to get louder with the RPM's because alternator is running of the drive belt. This usually happens when a power wire and a signal wire cross eachother or when there is a faulty ground. Do some wire tracing, adjust the groundings and try moving the signal wires around to find the source. This is a frustrating problem to fix.

 

[firemx220 10+ year member]

NATEM33 got the right idea. You should run your power cable away from your rca and remote cables. If they touch anywhere you could get that noise. also get a better ground.

 

[adamr3365]

What if the ground is fine and it is away from the other wires? how can you fix the problem then?

 

[natem33 10+ year member]

I may be taking a long shot here but this could fix the problem. do a lttle bit of trouble shooting first. Put your ear up to the tweeters and woofers and the rear speakers. The whine may not be audible through the woofers but check anyhow. Is there whine from the front back left and right? If there is then you know that there is a common source causing the problem. If it is only from one speaker then you have isolated the problem and can fix it from there. Try disconnecting the amp and running one of the speakers off of the head unit and stock wiring or another wire coming from the HU to one of the speakers. If the noise is still present then there is most likely a ground fault or other wiring fault within the HU. Just for F of it unplug the RCA's from the back of the HU and see if that eliminates the sound. Check the wiring harness and trace the ground, fixed power, switchable power wire, and the antannae wire. Try disconnecting different wires and moving different stereo related wires around until you find one that affects the whinning sound. If you still can't find the source then I would take the car to a stereo doctor (or stereo installation place that does this type of trouble shooting). It may cost about $75 so you'll have to decide if the problem is bothersome enough to spend $75 on. Another alternative is to try an in-line noise blocker, but those often don't do the job. I'm suspecting that the most likely problem is in the amp wiring comming from the front of the car to the rear of the car. Moving the grounding location may solve the problem too. I have heard of poeple spending hour after hour and day after day working on this before they find the cause. Good luck