I realize I might not be taken seriously by some folks, so rather than state my opinion about grounding and mounting, let me go ahead and copy something from the Crutchfield Guidebook Series #000CAR; Advanced Car Stereo Installations and Problem Solving, page 23, Installation Steps to Avoid Noise In Multi-Component Systems. This was sent to me from Crutchfield several years ago, and is only one of the many sources I've gathered valuable information from. Others have included magazines such as Car Audio & Electronics, Car Stereo Review, and many others. I've actually saved technical articles from car audio magazines for many years, and have a notebook full of important and valuable information. I don't just make this stuff up. So anyway, this is what page 23 says in the Crutchfied Guidebook:
1. Mounting: Make sure that none of your components are mounted directly to steel/metal. A lot of components have their internal grounds mounted to the chassis of the component. Mounting a component like this to steel/metal, and then connecting its ground wire, will result in a loop. It is best to mount all of your components on a nonconductive (wood) mounting rack.
2. Distinguish Between Signal Ground and Power Ground: There are two different grounds. The signal path ground is in part a sheild, meant to protect the signals traveling along the inner wire from noise. The power grounds provide the ground paths which allow the various amplifiers within the system to operate. The signal ground can be considered more delicate than the power ground, and it is for this reason that you do not ground the two of them together.
3. The Power Ground: The power ground coming out of the amplifers should be as short as possible. Contrary to popular belief, it is not best to run a return ground lead all the way to the battery. If you are using mulitple amplifiers, it is best to connect all of the grounds to the same area with about 1/2 inch seperating each of them. The metal should be free of paint and grease. The grounds should be secured using bolts/screws with star washers.
4. The Signal Ground: All signal grounds should be connected to the back of the receiver's chassis. The chassis should then be grounded to a ground with either 1/2 inch braided ground strap, or with multi-strand #10 wire. Run this ground to the firewall, or to the heaviest piece of steel/metal you can find. All signal grounds normally are carried through the braided shielding (barrel side) of RCA connector, so running multiple ground wires back to the head unit is not normally necessary. You can test the signal ground with an ohmmeter. Check for continuity between the barrel side of the input RCA jack and the ground lead of the component. If there is continuity, try running that component first with its ground lead disconnected, and check the unit's operation. If the unit does not work, run the ground lead from that component back up to the indash receiver. However, if there is continuity, attach component's ground lead with the amplifier grounds.
So, there you have it, steps on how to avoid noise in mulit-component systems, strait from the mouths of Crutchfield, a leading source in the mail-order electronics industry. If you don't agree with any of it, their phone number is easily found online and I'm sure they would love to hear that they are wrong. But I don't. I don't make stuff up that I post. I get it from many reliable sources, and have collected this information for many years.
Hope this helps. This will be my last addition to this thread. Good luck, dude! You're getting there! I'm anxious to read where you post that it all worked out and your system is noise-free and slammin' hard core!