OMG the engine NOISE!!!

[Nerfherder]

I have 4 Quart tweets in front, two mids in the door, and two more Quart tweets and 6X9 mids in the rear. I have a 4-channel amp powering them with the supplied crossovers. The engine noise is driving me crazy.
1) The gain is not turned up very high on the amp (Kenwood, 4 years old).
2) If I power the speakers with the deck, the noise is not present.
3) I have an 8-gauge power and ground wire. The ground wire is not more than 1-foot long, attached to the seatbelt bolt.
4) I have an HKS circle-earth grounding kit installed.
5) I am running the RCA cables down the center console, and the amp power down the passenger side.
6) The remote wire is integrated with my RCA cables (Monster.)
7) I have resistor-type plugs and Magnacor 8MM Performance wires.

I have even moved the amp from under the front seat to the rear of the car. I still have the noise. Can the amplifier be causing it? I will have to purchase a new one just to find out. Boy, will I be pissed if that is not the cause. Any other ideas? I've searched. Thanks.

 

[Chuckster]

#6 is your problem. That's NOT a remote power line!!! Disconnect it!

Run a separate remote line with your regular power.

 

[defrag010]

-get a bigger ground wire. Since you're powering all those speakers off of the same amp, -unless you wired them all in series (doubtful), you're pulling Alot of amps.
-get a bigger wire from:
-your alternator + to the fusebox
-your engine to chassis ground
-your battery to chassis ground

 

[pinknuggit]

I have 4 Quart tweets in front, two mids in the door, and two more Quart tweets and 6X9 mids in the rear. I have a 4-channel amp powering them with the supplied crossovers.

You should run two tweets and two mids in front, and two 6x9's in back. Just a suggestion.

oh, and run a new remote wire too.

 

[Chuckster]

Ladies and gentlemen, we may have a crisis!

RCA wires do NOT have an auxillary power in tandem. That is meant for a specific grounding. Disconnect that wire and run an independent remote wire!!!

Run that wire along with the rest of the power wires and your engine noise WILL go away.

 

[Chuckster]

Pinknuggit, I'm ashamed at you! You know better!

You need to shout louder at this kind of offense!!

 

[pinknuggit]

I was gonna lay some smack down, but i've made a commitment to not be such an asshole on here as much as I used to be. I'm trying to be nice about things.

 

[Chuckster]

I'm glad to hear you're being nice, Pink. I do, however, enjoy a bit of witty cynicism now and then.

Nerf, I'm surprise the Monster brand cables didn't have a warning similar to this one. Maybe they were used or you were in too big of a hurry to read?

 

[FiReBReTHa]

yea, #6 is for you to use as a ground for your headunit to match with your amp ground.

 

[realhp=turbo]

The only way Ive ever been able to get rid of radio buzz is to completely seperate power from signal lines. Run all power lines down one side and all RCA's down the other side trying to keep from crossing them anywhere else will greatly reduce your radio buzz. Make sure that your grounds are all clean, tight, and bare metal on metal. Properly insulated wire helps too.
Mike

 

[Nerfherder]

Damn, I got all excited! I thought that was going to be it. I replaced my RCA cable with a new one just in case. Then I ran a separate remote wire. No luck. Noise is still there. I guess I'm going to buy another amp. Maybe it's just old. Someone mentined a larger grounding wire, but I'm running 4-gauge, and I can't imagine getting any bigger than that. I realize I accidentally listed them as 8-gauge, earlier. I even sprung for the Ionx wiring. Thanks for the try, though, guys.

p.s. My monster cables did not have that warning on them, but I'm probably the reason they started to put that warning on them.

 

[frigginlazer]

Its sad, but my monster cables were actually labled as a remote turn on....

Oops. I hit a bump tonight and suddenly I got noise in my system. I think it is more ground related as it diddnt start untill I nailed a pot hole.

Mike

 

[Chuckster]

Sorry that didn't cure the problem, Nerf. I'm sure it will help though.

Before you spend the money on a new amp, you may want to try a couple of other things too.

First try running a new ground from your headunit to the car. Pick a nice lonely spot under the dash or console to connect it to and try that.

If that doesn't work, try extending the ground wire to reach where your amplifier is ground. I wouldn't bother tucking it under the carpet yet.

Think about a new amplifier ground location. Scrape off all the paint and send a new uncoated screw through to secure it. I think the seatbelt bolts use a rustproofing that creates some electrical resistance.

Maybe try a different set of RCA's. Also anywhere the power and signal wires need to cross, make sure they go perpendicular. Try not to let them run next to each other, even for a few inches near the amp.

Good luck!

 

[pinknuggit]

If the new headunit ground doesn't work, you should upgrade your "big three" under the hood that defrag mentioned previously. It will help the ground throughout your whole car.

 

[dont need 8]

Go have the amp bench tested before buying a new amp.

 

[realhp=turbo]

New deck and amp will not solve the problem, nor is it the problem. However I agree with the re-grounding of the head unit. I run 1.0 guage power and ground. No buzz. Do you have a capacitor? If you do then your ground for the amp can get grounded to the cap or to the spot that you have the cap grounded. Either way it is very important that all grounds are scraped clean of all paint, corrosion, ect. Your deck has a ground wire that you most likely have hooked up but the chassis of the head unit also needs to be grounded. I would use something like a piece of 10 guage. Remember, If your ground wire is more than 18 inches long then you will end up with a really bad ground loop that makes a really bad feed back noise. I always keep my grounds as short as possible. Another thing to remember; If you do go with some massive power cable you need to keep it away from any engine electrics or electronics. I had a friend who had 0 guage power wire in his ride that wasnt even hooked to the battery or an amp and it messed with his ecu and firing orders. Ofcourse that was on an ex-cop car but once he pulled the wire out, his car ran normal again.
mike

 

[DROOPY209]

another thing to take into consideration....the bolt that mounts the seat belt is coated with rust proofing that wont help with the conductivity you want to get. the best thing to do for the ground is to sand the paint off with some sand paper, on the bottom behind the seats, there should be some holes there where the plastic push pins go. take em out and sand away the paint until its bare metal, nice and shiny.

screw your ground wire into this hole with a self tapping screw. make sure your ground is very tight and doesnt wiggle at all. you might need to add a washer under the screw in some situations.

that lil wire that runs the length of the rca'z in the rca cable is for grounding purposes. IT IS NOT A REMOTE POWER WIRE!!! run a remote power wire on the right side of your car, right next to your main power cable.

another sidenote, i have seen MANY kenwood amps perform this phenomenon. you might want to "BORROW" a buddy's amp in your car and see what happens.

 

[Nerfherder]

Thanks, guys. I'm going to go through and re-ground everything as you have mentioned, including the head-unit chassis, with short ground wires. I don't think my problem is under the hood. That HKS circle-earth grounding kit was supposed to take care of all of that. I only have one amplifier, so I don't think I need more than 4-gauge wiring for the battery cables, amp power, and amp ground. I'm going to scrape and scuff everything before install. It will take me a while to do this because I can't get to it until this weekend. If the noise is still present with all the new grounding, I am going to buy a new amp. I, unfortunately, do not have a buddy with an amp. It may even take a couple of weeks to get it done, due to money constraints, but I will let you guys know how it goes. Thanks for your help.

 

[Nerfherder]

And the answer is: it was the head-unit. Yup, after all that crap, it turned out to be the head-unit. I replaced the amp with a friend's 2-channel with no change. That costed me a 20-pack of Bud Light. I then grounded the chassis of he head-unit with no luck. I scraped all grounding points and tried different grounding points with no luck. I got really irritated and took the CD player out of my truck and put it in my car. No more noise. So now I am the proud owner of a new Sony CD player with the cool color TFT screen on the front. The only problem is that the face isn't removable. That means it will be stolen within the month. Oh well, no more NOISE!!!!