First of all, I have done a search and I have read the other posts about alternator whine and car noise. I am having a problems with car noise and I have tried every solution I can find and I can't seem to stop it completely. I have lowered it so far by regrounding the radio to the chassis, moving my sparkplug wires farther away from my fire wall, and turning down the sensitivity on my amp. As long as I keep the sensitivity down I don't hear it, but it also makes my Autotek component set sound just like it did when it was running off of the radio. I even upgraded from $16 Stinger audio cable to an $80 set of Stinger audio cables. I am wondering if anyone with a 95-96 Cavy or Sunfire with the 2.2L motor, as ever found a specific stock wire underneath the dash that is causing this problem or if they have ever had the noise problem and found the solution to be replacing the sparkplug wires? I do have all of my power wires and audio wires running down seperate sides of my car with the power wire running underneath my car on the driver side and the audio wires running under my trim on the passenger side. I have two walmart(I know cheap brand) noise filters (ground loop isolators) on my audio wires, a ground loop isolator on my radio power and ground wire. Any help would be nice. I just want to make sure that I try everything before I buy a $70 set of sparkplug wires.
Car mods:
K&N intake
Racing rims
Audio:
Panasonic 602u headunit
900watt 2 channel Interfire Amplifier (IF-2900C)
400watt 2 channel MTX Amplifier (Thunder 3202)
2 12" Rockford Fosgate He Subs in Ported Box
G&S Redline 6x9's in the back
Autotek 6.5 component set in front doors
140.8Db's on the dash (Audiocontrol Mic)
try finding a shorter ground for your amp. I had a little bit of white noise, and then I shortened the ground on my amp....then there was no white noise.
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It is not a white noise problem. This sound increase and decreases with the acceleration of the engine. I am just looking for any other possibilities other than my spark plug wires.
Car mods:
K&N intake
Racing rims
Audio:
Panasonic 602u headunit
900watt 2 channel Interfire Amplifier (IF-2900C)
400watt 2 channel MTX Amplifier (Thunder 3202)
2 12" Rockford Fosgate He Subs in Ported Box
G&S Redline 6x9's in the back
Autotek 6.5 component set in front doors
140.8Db's on the dash (Audiocontrol Mic)
It's the rims!
ok, sorry, i know that's in your sig.
Seriously, i had the same problem. make sure that your RCA's aren't anyware near your power wire. The one thing that completely eliminated my alternater whine is the karma speaker wire from www.knukonceptz.com. I used 16awg for my components, and now i don't hear any alt noise. highly reccomended.
it is gets louder as you go faster than it is in your engine bay. I had the same problem too, and I actually just wrapped my power wire in electrical tape, that combined with a shorter ground and moving my rca's eliminated the noise entirely. You might wanna try that.
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I'm having the same issue with alternator whine on my infinity 4-channel amp.. If I lower the gains, the noise goes away, but then it sounds as if i didn't even have an amp. It's gotten so bad... that i had a passenger with me one day, and gunned the accelerator, and he said "man, i love the sound of a turbo!!" ... but I don't have a turbo, it was the engine whine coming through the speakers hahahha...
have you tried unplugging the RCA cables going into the amp? this will tell you if it's the AMP making the noise, or if the noise is coming from the HU.
I unplugged the RCA cables running from the HU to the amp, and the noise is still there ... so my guess is it's a grounding issue with the amp...
I've upgraded all the wiring in my engine bay (including the "big 3"), using 4gauge wire everywhere, ran 4guage wire straight from alternator to battery, and battery to the amp in the back.
my next step will be trying to find a new ground for the amp, or running a small gauge wire from the HU's ground to the amp's ground.
good luck with your noise.. it's a beast to tame.
----------
Cavillac
[M wrote:ATTRESS]
my next step will be trying to find a new ground for the amp, or running a small gauge wire from the HU's ground to the amp's ground.
Bad idea. your ground should be 18 inches or less.
schembo2000 wrote:It's the rims!
ok, sorry, i know that's in your sig.
Seriously, i had the same problem. make sure that your RCA's aren't anyware near your power wire. The one thing that completely eliminated my alternater whine is the karma speaker wire from www.knukonceptz.com. I used 16awg for my components, and now i don't hear any alt noise. highly reccomended.
This can be a problem, and it's usually overlooked by amateurs when installing their systems. It's best to run the RCA cables on one side of the car and the power on the other. Also, the ground should be no more than 3 feet in length.
Check your RCAs, if they're defective, they'll pick up all those little radio frequencies and run them right into the amp. Also make sure the amp IS NOT touching the chassis in any way ie mounting screws that touch both the amp and the car's metal. THat could do it, not to mention cause grounding problems.
"Silly cluth, glazing is for donuts!"
[M wrote:ATTRESS]I'm having the same issue with alternator whine on my infinity 4-channel amp.. If I lower the gains, the noise goes away, but then it sounds as if i didn't even have an amp. It's gotten so bad... that i had a passenger with me one day, and gunned the accelerator, and he said "man, i love the sound of a turbo!!" ... but I don't have a turbo, it was the engine whine coming through the speakers hahahha...
have you tried unplugging the RCA cables going into the amp? this will tell you if it's the AMP making the noise, or if the noise is coming from the HU.
I unplugged the RCA cables running from the HU to the amp, and the noise is still there ... so my guess is it's a grounding issue with the amp...
I've upgraded all the wiring in my engine bay (including the "big 3"), using 4gauge wire everywhere, ran 4guage wire straight from alternator to battery, and battery to the amp in the back.
my next step will be trying to find a new ground for the amp, or running a small gauge wire from the HU's ground to the amp's ground.
good luck with your noise.. it's a beast to tame.
this is the best way of doing it. u need to troubleshoot and find out exactly where the noise is entering, try what he did and see what happens. just randomly changing wires and buying high dollar rca's may only make your pocket book lighter if your not fixing the issues where the problem actually is.
as for running a ground wire from the headunit to the same location of the amp. u can try that. its one of the suggestions audio control had for me when i was running one of their eq's and it worked.
buddy of mine has done some testing of grounds and found that running a ground from the amp in the trunk straight to the battery gave him just as good a ground as running a short ground from the amp the frame of the car. grounding issues are the cause of alternator whine the majority of the time. you may have to try several grounding spots before u find the right placement. and make sure you scrape all the paint away from the grounding location and make sure its a good solid tight connection
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First of all, my powerwire is run underneath the driver side of my car and my RCA cables are ran down the passenger side of the car under the trim. The only place where the RCA cables are anywhere near the power cable is where they enter the amp themselves. I have tried running the car and moving the wires around behind the radio, under the hood, and in the trunk. No change. My ground wire is about 2 feet long and run through a hole in the bottom of my spare tire well and are grounded to the chassis and I used a wire brush and a grinding will to clean the surface before attaching the wires. The only change has occurred when I have pulled my sparkplug wires closer to my engine. The farther I moved the sparkplug wires away from the fire wall the less noise. I currently have them pulled as close to the engine as I can get them. So, I believe that my best solution is going to be buying new sparkplug wires. Any suggestions of a set with good insulation that my solve the problem? I know that most sparkplug wires are built to improve the performance of the engine and so they never advertise the insulation of the wires and how well it will block unwanted electric waves from entering your radio. Any testomonials of anyone with the same problem. Any suggestions welcomed.
Car mods:
K&N intake
Racing rims
Audio:
Panasonic 602u headunit
900watt 2 channel Interfire Amplifier (IF-2900C)
400watt 2 channel MTX Amplifier (Thunder 3202)
2 12" Rockford Fosgate He Subs in Ported Box
G&S Redline 6x9's in the back
Autotek 6.5 component set in front doors
140.8Db's on the dash (Audiocontrol Mic)
88gtman wrote:First of all, my powerwire runs underneath the driver side of my car and my RCA cables are ran down the passenger side of the car under the trim. The only place where the RCA cables are anywhere near the power cable is where they enter the amp themselves. I have tried running the car and moving the wires around behind the radio, under the hood, and in the trunk. No change. My ground wires are about 2 feet long and run through a hole in the bottom of my spare tire well and are grounded to the chassis and I used a wire brush and a grinding wheel to clean the surface before attaching the wires. The only change has occurred when I have pulled my sparkplug wires closer to my engine. The farther I moved the sparkplug wires away from the fire wall the less noise. I currently have them pulled as close to the engine as I can get them. So, I believe that my best solution is going to be buying new sparkplug wires. Any suggestions for a set of sparkplug wires with good insulation that may solve the problem? I know that most sparkplug wires are built to improve the performance of the engine and so they never advertise the insulation of the wires and how well it will block unwanted electric waves from entering your radio. Any testomonials of anyone with the same problem. Any suggestions welcomed.
Sorry for the spelling and grammatical errors. I corrected the mistakes and clarified a little in the above quote.
Car mods:
K&N intake
Racing rims
Audio:
Panasonic 602u headunit
900watt 2 channel Interfire Amplifier (IF-2900C)
400watt 2 channel MTX Amplifier (Thunder 3202)
2 12" Rockford Fosgate He Subs in Ported Box
G&S Redline 6x9's in the back
Autotek 6.5 component set in front doors
140.8Db's on the dash (Audiocontrol Mic)
I honestly don't have a recommendation for the plug wires, bro. That's a problem I never had. I dealt with the mystery noises myself in my dB Drag car and I went to the extreme of wrapping all of the amps in copper mesh and oddly it worked, but I could never find the actual source for the problem. Sparkplug wires? Beats me. Good luck to ya.
"Silly cluth, glazing is for donuts!"
take ur power wire and run it across the engine bay....tucked away so that it doesn't catch on fire, and run it down the passenger side of the car, then run your RCA's down the driver's side, that way they never cross, not even at the amp. It seems like the best way to do it, at least that is how I did it.
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howe0822 wrote:take ur power wire and run it across the engine bay....tucked away so that it doesn't catch on fire, and run it down the passenger side of the car, then run your RCA's down the driver's side, that way they never cross, not even at the amp. It seems like the best way to do it, at least that is how I did it.
That's gonna eat up a lot of power wire going across the engine bay and I don't see how that's any advantage. Using a set of twisted pair RCAs will elminate almost all interferance that is getting picked up along the way to the amp. I run twisted pair RCAs right next to the power wire the whole way down the car all the time with no noise problems.
-Chris
Besse wrote:howe0822 wrote:take ur power wire and run it across the engine bay....tucked away so that it doesn't catch on fire, and run it down the passenger side of the car, then run your RCA's down the driver's side, that way they never cross, not even at the amp. It seems like the best way to do it, at least that is how I did it.
That's gonna eat up a lot of power wire going across the engine bay and I don't see how that's any advantage. Using a set of twisted pair RCAs will elminate almost all interferance that is getting picked up along the way to the amp. I run twisted pair RCAs right next to the power wire the whole way down the car all the time with no noise problems.
I did it to ensure that my power wire and my Radioshack RCA's were on different sides of teh car and never crossed
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ok, kinda still sounds like a grounding problem. Check all the grounds with a dmm, what you need to do test the resistance between the ground and the negative battery post. So take a piece of wire long enough to reach all your ground points and connect it to your negative battery post. Measure the resistance of that wire so that doesn't interfere with your readings. And then measure the resistance of all the ground points by connecting one point of the multimeter to the ground point and the other to the wire coming from the negative battery post. It should read exactly what the multimeter read with the end of the wire and the negative battery post connected to the leads (or damn close).
If you get a 1/2 ohm or less resistance from all your ground points then with all the troubleshooting you've done I would have to say it is a problem with one of the pieces of equipment so unplug them one by one and see which is causing the problem. Like unplug the harness from the deck and then plug in a portable cd player to the amp and see if you still have noise with the cd player unplugged. And take off those rediculous filters, I have never seen one work properly, and they all add distortion.
You said the problem happens when you turn the gain up... on which amp? On both amps, if you can't hear it out of the sub amp, then switch the crossover off and listen for it. If you hear it from the subs too, then it is either coming from rca's or the deck and since you got decent quality rca's on the front amp, them I would say it is the HU. I've got a panasonic HU and I dont have any problems, it might be defective, or you might not have a big enough ground wire coming off of it. I would use 12 guage or better for the power and ground, and keep the ground as short as possible like everyone has been saying, i can almost bet it is coming from the deck.
Anyways, i know this is just a mush of information, but try everything listed fails it almost has to be noise put out by the alternator which may need to be replaced. Where did you get that noise was coming from plug wires? I am not saying it is farfetched or anything like that I would just like to read about it.
I am going to check the grounds with a DMM. I haven't tried that yet. I do know that the sound comes through the RCA'S that are attached to the subs as well as the amp attached to my front speakers. The sound does not come through the sub amp and an installer from my favorite audio store told me that those kinds of sounds do not usually play through subs and that is why I don't hear it. If I don't find anything from the DMM than I will let you know. Just to make sure. I thought I would ask. I was told that it is best to ground all of your amps to one location. Is this true?
Car mods:
K&N intake
Racing rims
Audio:
Panasonic 602u headunit
900watt 2 channel Interfire Amplifier (IF-2900C)
400watt 2 channel MTX Amplifier (Thunder 3202)
2 12" Rockford Fosgate He Subs in Ported Box
G&S Redline 6x9's in the back
Autotek 6.5 component set in front doors
140.8Db's on the dash (Audiocontrol Mic)
Here is what i did to fix that problem....
I got a 2 awg wire and bolted it to the frame of my car. I grind-ed the frame first to get all the paint dirt and whatever else off to make it a good connection. I also soldered the wire in the wire terminal to make sure the connection was good. I did the same thing on the other side of the wire with is about 6 inchs long. Then i bolted and soldered the other end to a ten foot pipe that i stuck in the ground in my yard. The pipe is about one half inch thick and is sticking up about four inchs out the ground. I works great i get no noise what so ever. The only problem is i can not drive too far with it like that. You might wanna check to see where the sea level is in your area because when it rain and the pipe gets wet the noise is really bad.
OK for real now. Not sure what the problem is but i am having the same thing. But i can only hear it when i turn my radio low. So i say just jam it all the time.
Best of luck
