Hey guys,

I recently installed an amp and now I get the dreaded alternator whine thru my speakers. I tried to avoid any electronics, but both sides have wiring. Should I try to wire it thru the center of my car. How have you diy'ers fix this problem? ANd isn't the dang computer right below the radio?

 

1st step is check and change your ground. Short, heavy gauge ground wire with a solid metal-metal connection - no paint in the way.

 

What he said -^

I got some whine when I moved my audio source from the center console to the trunk.

Solution: Ran big ground wire all the way from the battery to all my audio components in the trunk.

Also, you mentioned you have wiring down both sides - make sure your power wires are down one side and your audio signal wires are down the other side.

 

There's teh answer. Unibodied cars have terrible ground return paths due to welds. Some are lucky. It's a 50/50 shot. I don't think yours worked, where OCD's did. I had to ground back to the battery. It is also remotely possible your alternator is bad.

 

Thanks guys. I didn't even think about grounding back to the battery. Guess I'm off to buy another wire.

1st step is check and change your ground. Short, heavy gauge ground wire with a solid metal-metal connection - no paint in the way.

I did that twice. made it somewhat better, but still hear it

Also, you mentioned you have wiring down both sides - make sure your power wires are down one side and your audio signal wires are down the other side.

Did that and swapped the sides the wires were running. fun

 

Make sure to run power and ground wires down one side and your RCA's on the other.

 

I had that once cause I had a ground loop....too many grounds....

 

Don't under estimate the possibity of the alternator going out..... they are notorious on these cars.

Otherwise, ground to the battery like suggested.

 

I've got the same problem. Have had it for 6 months now. Eventually I'll get around to doing something about it.

 

Resurrection of a thread!

You know that must be bad news when a thread is brought back to life.

I did as I was told above. Ran a large 4 gauge wire for ground all the way to the battery.

Well, I was so sure it was going to work that I put the car back together and then washed it.

So later when I go to move it, I crank up the engine and OMG it's @@@@@@ louder then the stereo!

I'm saying it's almost screaming at me. And don't turn on the air conditioner with the radio on!


Alright, with that said, what do you think if I ran the ground for the radio to the battery also?

If not, I'm guess I'm going to go to an audio shop to get it fixed

 

I had better luck with mine. I just redid it this weekend. I ran a 4 gauge ground wire to the battery and it reduced it about 90%. I've still got a little whine at about 1/4 volume with AC on at 1/2 to full throttle. I still haven't figured out how to solve it, but its liveable for now.

 

Glad to hear you had better luck than me. I'm going to put mine back to how it was temporarily until I can get it right. That's how mine was before I switched it.

 

Are your power wires on the same side as your speaker/signal/whatever wires?

 

I have power and ground wires running under the passenger door, RCA wires running under drivers door, and speaker wires running under console and rear seat straight to the back. The amp is mounted on the back of the rear passenger side seat. Tom mentioned a faulty alternator or loose alternator connection, its kind of tight in there, I will disconnect battery then remove CAI and see if there's anything to be done there. Other than that Idon't know what else I can do. Under some of the miscellaneous grounds for like the backup camera and such I have scraped the paint to make sure the ground touches metal to metal, but for the amp I ran ground wire equal to the size of the power wire back to the battery.

 

Do you know which speakers it's coming through?

I have zero whine except when I start my system up, where I get both alternator whine and hear the clickity-click of my sequential lights through my front door subs. Everything I have is grounded via a 0 gauge wire straight to the battery, except for the factory door subs, which retain their factory grounds... and I have a ground loop between those factory amps and my lights/alternator. But it all goes away when my carputer boots into windows - I think my sound card has some magical circuitry that compensates for or eliminates these ground loops.

Anyway, I'm assuming you still have your head unit connected through factory grounds (through the wiring harness) and also your shaker500 amps, if you have them. I'm thinking maybe grounding both of those to real ground (thick wire to battery or ground distribution block that everything else is connected to) will eliminate your noise.. (probably eliminate my pre-boot noise as well, but I only hear it for 30 seconds and am too lazy to muck around with wires for a long, long time)

 

Steve,

That definitely sounds like something I need to do. My aftermarket head unit is still on factory ground and I really thinks its originating there and not at the amp. My next step will be to try that and then if that doesn't work move on to alternator. Just for reference I'm not using Shaker 500 amps, my amp runs to the door speakers and I have completely disconnected Shaker amps and Sirius in the trunk.

Gary

 

Gary - yeah, that rules out the shaker amps.. hopefully it's just your head unit ground..

 

A long time ago in my 88 gt I had the same problem. I got some braided shield from work (its like the braided shielding on you TV coax cable, pic below) and ran my power wire through it. I grounded it at both ends and the whine what gone. If its a long run you might what to ground it at a couple spots along the routing path as well as the ends...