What went wrong? ignition noise, whine etc?

Question

Just fitted a car audio system, everything was perfect (no noise). I decided to replace the fuze box, power, ground, remote wiring to 4 guage as my old 8 guage had is days, Now i have ignition noise, a ringing type noise when the ignition is switched to on position, slight engine whine and delay with front and rear amps turning on (sub amp is fine) and h/lights dimm with bass. what could have gone wrong? its so simple to replace the wiring that i did. i even spent little extra on quality wiring, made better grounds replaced battery terminals, made good crimpt soldered connections, everything you could think of to make sure it was done 100%. I dont understand! please help! could a capacitor help?

Answer 1

part 1

Engine noise thru the audio system is normally an indication of ground problems to sort the noise without ripping out all you wiring you can buy a:

Ground loop Isolator. i got 3 (1 per amp)  in my car they cost about £25 and they plug into the rca leads then into the amp.

people say thay if you run the power cables and the rca leads on oppist sides of the car this will stop it but i have never solvedthe problem buy moving there location.

part 2

amps taking a long time to turn on and light dimming is an indication that your battery is not up to the job.

its not that it has lost power (otherwise your car whould not start but it is an idication that the ampage is to low.

this could be that is an old battery or you need to top it up with deionised water.

or it could be that it just cant cope with the new wire you installed.

there are a few options 1 new battery i whould suggest a dry cell one,

or a capacitor/powerc cap.

which every one you chose i would say 2 things

1. place it near you amps and that way the wires are 10x shorter so amps will react quicker.

2. wire all amps and components of your audio system to the this rathger than your cars battery and then wire it directly to the altanator. this will mean that the audio system has full power not sharing it with lights ignition etc. and buy wiring it directly to the alt you will never run you battery down with your sound system and need a jump start as the car's power runs completly seperate.

Answer 2

im pretty sure the obvious thing to say is to check your ground. But i hate when people tell me that when i know a have a good ground.

Im also pretty sure you can run the remote wire next to the power wire without that causing noise. Its when you run the speaker or rca's next to the power that you get engine noise or interference.

so finally, if your headlights are dimming with the bass, id say you need a capacitor. But usually lights only dimm if you have an older car and the charging system can hang or you have an amp thats pulling 400-500 rms watts. so thats what i think, hope i helped.

Answer 3

since you say all the wireing was done perfect (right placement, not close to any power wires, good quality cables, great connections, great ground source), then the source of the problem is the stereo. pioneer stereos are notorious for having grounding problems when theres a short or small static on any RCA and blows an internal fuse.

there are several ways to fix this. one is buying a "ground loop isolator" but will reduce the sound quality of your system. radio shack should have them.

another one is getting a speaker wire. in one end, connect it to a good ground source. on the other end, loop the wire around the outside of the RCA's that will be used behind the stereo.

notice i said outside of the RCA's. the outside part is what carrys the ground on them. the hole of the rca's is what carrys the signal. since the stereo does not have good grounding on the rca's, this will fix it very easy.

if you do this, try to do it as clean as possible.

ive fixed several stereos using the 2nd method cus ppl for some reason connect and disconnect the wires or rca's while the stereo is on. usually this will create static and travel to the stereo through the rca's and ends up blowing the internal ground fuse. the result is a buzzin sound when the car is on only. very annoying too lol and it gets louder if you step on the gas.

by the way, i would not recommend you using a capacitor. they only "fix" things for a short time and will reduce the life of your amplifier.

***EDIT***

na dude, you get a new cable, preferebly a speaker cable because they are thin. DO NOT use a cable that is connected to a speaker. this cable needs to have nothing connected to it.

then strip the cable from both ends to have enough wire exposed for a good connection, on one end of the cable, connected to any ground source, i mostly just use the ground source from the stereo since its very close. then, the other end of this cable, wrap it around the RCA's behind the stereo. just the outer part of the RCA's.