Hey all,

I've installed my full system and am I previous installer for 4+ years. Ive seen the problems and tried many solutions but none have worked. Here are my problems.

1). I have engine noise in my system. I routed the RCA's away from the power and on the other side on the car by themselves. I have not tried ground loop isolators (as I know they are only a band-aid fix). After some tries with my HU i know its not a blown ground fuse in my Pioneer HU due to less than 1ohm and having continuity. I had thought it was the 8's altenator location but i dk.

2). My second issue is my amps overheating. I have a mono block and 4 ch amp and they get extremely hot and my 4ch even went into protection cuz it was so hot. I attribute this to the 8's trunk being sealed and having no air moving around in it. I havent tried an external fan because most new amps dont heat up and dont need fans.

My system is listed below along with some pics of my install. Any help would be appreciated. I've already dumped junk loads of money into product so I have money but I'd rather try and save some by getting the right solution not buying many things if they are only used for testing. Im looking to finally be done with the audio portion of this car as its taken me forever to do and been quite a hassle.

 

that sounds like the EXACT problems a bad (or poor) ground can cause

I had similar problems and wound up just running a 4 awg wire back to the battery for ground after failing to find a good one in my trunk. (read the proper ground sticky on this forum)

I've also tried to ground EVERYTHING (even the HU) to the same spot - and still got some noise..

most of the noise went away when I upgraded my equipment - I went to a 2 DIN Pioneer AVIC Z2 Headunit with dedicated pre outs instead of a LOC.. and the noise that is left is tollerable, but could be fixed if my HU had higher pre outs so i could "turn down" my amps

also - I fixed my heating problems by getting amps that don't get hot the Alpine PDX series are INCREDIBLE!!! here is my setup -



and with less than 2 inches of airspace each neither of my amps have EVER overheated and I've had them there well over 2 years

they are designed so you could even stack them 3 high with no problems

 

wikkedone.....i actually have 2 really good grounds but ill check them out. and im not using an loc i have a 4000dvd and the same pre-out amps u do. actually they are the same on most higher end Pioneers. and after 4 years I have had 2 amps overheat and that was due to them being in del sols that were custom mounted. they just needed air. however this didnt fix my problem but ill try it. finally my gains on my amp are at half and its too loud. so i dk where the engine noise is coming from cuz im not convinced its not my HU

 

Due to you being a previous installer, I'll assume you know what solid grounds are.

Use a stronger signal in and less gain **** to get to your desired volume.

Use more volume **** to get to your given volume and turn up the outputs on your Kicker crossover some. Bump the gain ***** on the amps down to compensate. That should help with both problems.

 

firebirdude thanks ill give it a shot tonight. and thanks for noting my experience. there is always room for improvement in everyone tho lol. and nice set up. good ol school kicker amp.

 

hey all,

so ive been thinking and trying things. (my trunk ground is fine).......where did everyone ground thier headunits too? i normally do mine on the case of the radio. however this time i did it to a bolt right infront of the shifter. that wouldnt contribute i dont think but where did anyone else ground their HU to?

also im setting up a little fan today inside the trunk to see if its just the heat and im playing with my settings yet again. anyone else have any ideas? id ike to put my car back together and actually drive it tonight?

 

I actually ran my HU ground all the way back to my cap - where my amps and everything else is grounded and it didn't make a lick of difference.. I think you should be able to get the sound down low enough by turning the pre-amps up and the amps down.

 

lol exactly what I said.

 

A good ground on your head unit has nothing to do with you "hot swapping" the rca cables and taking out the circuit on the preamp section in the head unit. This is a known issue in the Pioneer head unit circuit design for over 20 years now. Take the head unit out of the dash. Take a small length of wire and tie one end to ground on the chassis of the head unit. Take the other end, bare wire, and wrap it around the shield of one of the rca cables where it connects to the cd player. See if that gets rid of your noise. If it does, then you have indeed blown a fuse that protects the preamp circuit inside the cd player.

 

I have the same noise with my Alpine HU. As I am not an installer I had it installed, brought it back 3 times to try and get it fixed and no luck. I took it to another installer who called Metra, he said it has something to do with the Metra dash kit. Call Metra's tech support they have an answer I just haven't had the installer do it yet. If you get it fixed please post the answer.
Metra Tech support: 800-253-TECH

 

I can tell you that the Metra kit does not cause engine noise - its functions are independent of the audio signals.

Turning up the signal at the source and reducing the gain at the amp is always a good idea when trying to kill noise.

Alternator whine can come from several sources, and can be challenging to separate.

It could be an amp with a poorly filtered power supply. Disconnect the RCA cables from the amp. If the noise is still there (not usually the case), get rid of the amp.

It could be from a significant ground differential between the head unit and the amp, and poor common mode noise rejection at the amp. With the RCAs connected to the inputs of the amp, disconnect the RCAs at the head unit and ground them (plus and minus, as described by forbidden, using the head unit's chassis as ground). If the noise is still there, you need to either reduce the voltage difference between the grounds, or improve the CMRR of the amp. This is where ground loop isolators are applicable, and they can be a good fix here. Most of them provide very good CMRR, but frequency response can vary. They often lack at the low end. Get one and listen.

If the noise was missing in the last two tests but comes back when the head unit is reconnected, you need to filter the power supply of the radio using an LC filter. Filter the battery lead feeding the radio.

This is mostly from a theoretical standpoint - any comments (preferably not flaming) would be welcome.

 

where did you guys run your power wire? i couldnt find a hole in the firewall...and i couldnt see anywhere underneath the car to run it