Remounted amps, now alternator whine?

[Towlieee 10+ year member]

Remounted my amps from the back of my box to the back of one of my seats and tucked my wires, all that changed was I tucked my wires into the seat, and I decided to add a separate 8awg wire for my mid/high amp instead of my old setup (was daisy chaining the amps)

Just a little memphis pr1.500 and I forgot what model the other amp is, I got them both free, just a temp setup for my new car.

Anyways, now I have alternator whine from my high's, and when I turn my sub amp on (have 2 remotes ran, so I Can kill my memphis amp when I want) my highs start to distort very badly... Like it sounds like they are getting tons of bass and being over powered, but they are fine when the sub amp is turned off...

Didn't know if simply running 2 grounds to the 2 separate amps would cause this, or maybe one o my RCA's are going to ****?

I've never had problem with alt whine before, I've even "Gasp" ran my power wire along side my rca's and mid/high wires before without issue..

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[Boomin_tahoe 5,000+ posts]

How did you run 2 amps w/o a distrib block?

 

[Towlieee 10+ year member]

How did you run 2 amps w/o a distrib block?

Ghetto, just got this car, used amps/wire I had sitting around, 4awg to the memphis, then daisy chained with 8awg to the tiny amp lol...

I have $115 so far into the install, That includes building my box, carpeting it, and the RE SE 15" lol

Way less than ideal... But it works for now. Makes me sick considering my last install I had over $500 into electrical alone lol

 

[Boomin_tahoe 5,000+ posts]

Ah well make use of what we have I guess....even on a budget.

Wonder who painted the amps.

 

[Towlieee 10+ year member]

Ah well make use of what we have I guess....even on a budget.
Wonder who painted the amps.

I did lol, the small amp was purple from the factory, the memphis I painted pink with sparkly clear coat for my GF lol, it's her old amp that I gave her. Had to rip the pink LED out of it that I put in and put the blue one back in, and paint it blue to match my valve cover LOL.. Ghetto I know, but still, functional LOL

Spent $40 on a RE SE 15" d2, actually sounds **** good in 3.8ish cubes at 32hz on only "500 watts", not sure if this Memphis PR1.500 is under rated or if it's just the fact its a hatch, but it gets loud for what it is

edit: Note I wouldn't be spray bombing anything high end, considering I got the amps free, already had painted the memphis pink prior for my girl, and the sub was $40, why not lol... Looks better now at least //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

 

[Boomin_tahoe 5,000+ posts]

oh gawd...ya pink amp a nono for me! I'd paint it too!!

 

[Towlieee 10+ year member]

so on my drive to work this morning, there is no alt whine, but for some reason, when the sub amp is on, my front/rear speakers distort bad, it's like I'm running bass boost to them.... This didn't happen before. Anytime I flip my sub amp off, they sound normal, soon as I turn it on (even with the sub disconnected from the amp) the mids/highs start to sound like trash...

The memphis amp has a passthrough, rca's go in, then back out to my mid/high amp. After work going to attempt to daisy chain the grounds again instead of running separate ones, that's the only thing that I could imagine it could be. Both grounds are on bare metal that I sanded, 8awg to the highs amp, 4awg to the memphis sub amp

 

[dev199505]

You may be getting a ground loop if your amps have metal feet and are mounted on the seat since most seat backings are metal I would also invest in some good distribution blocks I can get you some for a good price

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[Towlieee 10+ year member]

You may be getting a ground loop if your amps have metal feet and are mounted on the seat since most seat backings are metal I would also invest in some good distribution blocks I can get you some for a good price
Sent from my 5054N using Tapatalk

Dang good looking out, I wouldn't have thought about that. Yeah I'm screwed into the sheet metal on the back of the seats, so that might be my issue. If that is indeed the issue, I wonder if simply running a small gauge ground wire from my main ground point, to one of the screw legs on each amp would stop this?

My setup before was the amps mounted to the MDF on the side of my box, just mounted them to the seats for ease of hiding/tucking my wires without building an amp rack.

I now feel stupid for taking the time to mount my amps to the back of the seats and running all my wire nice. Today I'll try to just unbolt the amps from the seats, and see if the problem goes away. I really like having my amps there, looks clean, and the sub can easily be pulled from my vehicle by only disconnecting the 2 speaker wires vs going out of my way to disconnect the amps ugh

edit: I'll try and find a work around, worse case scenario I guess I could always throw a thin sheet of MDF on the back of the seat to mount the amps to, and have the mdf mounted to hte seat with separate screws.

 

[wew lad 5,000+ posts]

it's going to be a problem with your wiring. mounting it to the seat is likely not a problem, but taking a few secs to pull them off and hold them away from the seat while they're on and seeing if the noise disappears is a good idea.

if you want the wiring to be clean pull out all the wiring you currently have in there. rerun all of it. follow the advice of whats given to you, ground the amps seperately, run the rcas seperate, use a ofc wire to a distro block, and there's a very good chance your noise will disappear.

 

[pickup1 5,000+ posts]

Recheck you ground and try to keep rcas away from the power wire.

 

[Towlieee 10+ year member]

it's going to be a problem with your wiring. mounting it to the seat is likely not a problem, but taking a few secs to pull them off and hold them away from the seat while they're on and seeing if the noise disappears is a good idea.
if you want the wiring to be clean pull out all the wiring you currently have in there. rerun all of it. follow the advice of whats given to you, ground the amps seperately, run the rcas seperate, use a ofc wire to a distro block, and there's a very good chance your noise will disappear.

My fronts/rear door speakers are ran separately, my RCA's are ran separately, always have been, the only thing that changed was me moving the amps from my box to the back of the seats, and screwing into that sheet metal.

I eventually will wire it right, I literally have $120ish into the entire stereo, and $60ish of that was just on the box....

My last setup I spent over $200 on just wiring, not to mention the HO alt and 2 800cca budget batteries lol...

It sounded perfect before, moving it over to the seat, running wires tucked into the seat, and now I get alt whine, and my speakers sound "blown" when the sub amp is turned on. I get the alt whine, I have a gorund loop issue and need to address that, but I've NEVER had speakers suddenly sound muddy and almost "blown" when the sub amp is on vs off. Even with the sub disconnected lol

 

---------- Post added at 01:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:06 PM ----------

 

My next thing to do is to snag a much better mid/high amp, something other than this free amp I got (which hey, is better than factory HU) lol.... Then grab some components/build kick pods, then upgrade my electrical system.

 

[Towlieee 10+ year member]

It's a slow build, Just got the car not long ago, done a bunch of maint/repairs to make it drive right, have other life stuff going on right now. Really want to go dump $2k+ into stereo/electrical upgrades, but also want to buy another honda f4i to ride, I need more monies!

 

[wew lad 5,000+ posts]

no no you dont have to sink money in, just a few hours of your time and a few bucks for tape, wire tie downs, and a run of 4 gauge ofc. im talking less than $50, fuse blocks can be had for less than $15 (ill hook you up with a fuse block if necessary), the wire will be less than 20, and the rest for tie downs and tape is plenty. you might be able to go to a local shop and just buy wire and terminals from them, 20ft of red and 5-10ft of ground. might be able to find a 4 gauge ofc amp kit cheap on amazon for less than $50

front/rear speakers and power can all be run together imo, no issue there. 9 wire conductor from original speaker wiring behind the headunit to the back where the amps are.

your problem is in the ground between your two amps. you had them daisy chained off of one ground before, now you wired it separately and it doesnt like it, which indicates a ground loop between those two amps and possibly the headunit. each amp needs their own ground to the closest piece of thick sheetmetal with a 'direct' path to your battery/engine/firwall. dont ground them on the same bolt unless the wires best terminate literally right next to each other