Persistent Engine Noise

I have a 2007 Saturn Ion 3 sedan. Initially, I had a Rockford Fosgate 551x installed on the front/rear speakers with no addiitional processing. I used the factory radio with two PAC step downs to get a low level RCA signal for the amp. I had a horrible engine noise, but only when I used my mp3 player (Archos GMini 402e) which plugged into the front of the factory radio via an 1/8 inch plug. Since the battery in this car is in the trunk, both the 12v+ and ground were about 6ft runs directly to the battery, 8guage OFC cable. I went through other sets of RCAs from the PAC low output converters to the amp and still had noise particularly in the rear. The noise was present only when an RCA was connected to the amp, regardless if the RCA had a signal or not. I ended up running all front/rear speakers off the front channel. That was the first set up....

Now, I replaced the amp with a Phoenix Gold Octane 5.0:4, and until last night, kept the factory radio, loc's, etc. No noise at all. During the last week, I replaced the el-cheapo RCA's I had (which incidently had been run down the passenger side of the car) with three sets of Streetwires Zero-Noise 2.0 series cables--one for the front, one for the rear, and one for a future sub. The front set connected to the output of an AudioControl ESP-3 processor that I also added to the front stage and had a set of Streetwires Zero-Noise 3.5 series (6ft) cables running from the front channel loc (the PAC step down) from behind the factory radio to the input of the ESP-3. With that set up, still using the factory radio, I had very minimal noise on the front side only. It was an extremely small amount that I attributed to either the using the loc's (after all, they were old) or the ESP-3 as I've been told a number of times that older AudioControl equipment can be notorious for having noise problems. I had the ESP-3 in my 95 F150 with no noise though.  I also installed a Clarion SRK-5 center channel unit on the center channel output of the ESP-3 but did not connect it to the channel speaker just yet. Also, the new RCA's were run through the middle of the car, with the exception of the small 1 ft detour to the ESP-3 located under the passenger seat.

Yesterday (we're moving towards the point of this, albeit slowly), my new head unit arrived: a Pioneer Premier DEH-P590IB. I installed this last night and mounted the center channel, both in a custom fabricated "dash kit" that I made. I did not connect the center channel though as it was night time when I got done and I didnt have any time left to tweak the center. I powered the system up and I dont recall hearing any noise. Well, this morning, I got in my car and got ready to leave for work when I was bombarded with an awful engine whine. Unlike before when the noise seemed to be present only when I used the mp3 player (which is now connected to the Aux input on the rear of the Premier head unit), now, the noise is present regardless if the mp3 player is connected or not. The noise seems to come largely from the rear. I've switched RCA's on the back of the head unit but the noise continued, unphased. At the amp, I switched RCA's, still nothing changed.

So, now, I am at a loss... I'm wondering if running the RCA's down the middle had an effect, or if for some strange bizzare reason, connecting the ground directly to the battery had an impact... I dont know. Perhaps the new headunit has problems? I dont know.... I'm hoping to see if anyone has some suggestions or has encountered similar problems...

Thanks ahead of time.

Hmm.

I would be very suprised if your RCA's have alot do with this problem ..  I always use the cheapest wire I can find (seriously dude, the expensive wire enriches nothing but the seller) and I've never had engine whine issues... unless there was a specific problem with the wire itself.. which you've apparently eliminated, this is not the source of your problem.

This however, I've heard repeated many times... technically speaking, grounding to the chassis or the battery or anything really should all look like the same 'point' electrically ... but I've heard, anecdotally, that this is not always the case.  I've seen many posters here and other places report significant cleanup in this department finding a chassis grounding point.   I suspect the HU however.

You indicate that this problem was greatly magnified with the addition of a quality aftermarket HU.  I betcha this HU is asking wayy more power that the stock HU, and power and ground that are in the stock harness are not sufficient.  I've encountered this... albiet with older vehicles.. several times.

Find the HU ground wire and run some 12 or 14 gauge speaker wire to a chassis grounding point and see if that doesn't clean it up. 

I'll run 12 guage to the HU tonight and see what happens. I have some 12 guage speaker wire that I typically reserve for subs but I can spare 15ft of it to test this.

also, if this doesnt do anything, i can run the el-cheapo rca's draped over the seats to the amp to see if that makes a difference. if not, then I have a DEH-P860MP in my 95 F150 that I can pull out and try.

thanks for the input. I will post my results when I am done.

Lemmie ask ya this..   if you turn the gains on your amp down ... say 1/2 way .... does the engine whine persist or does it only appear with the gains (or the volume knob) turned up?

i love pioneer head units, but i have had some problems with noise/related to them in the past. 

how is your ground from your battery to chassis?  stock wire?  may want to double it up.

how about the ground wire from your alternator to chassis? may want to upsize that also.  power starts at the source, even though your battery is close by, the power still has to travel to it. 

maybe try to bypass the esp3-good power and ground to that, too, i assume?

Huh.  Funny.  I didn't want to say anything but the only Pioneer I've ever owned also had some killer whine issues... I thought it had more to do with the 2v pre-outs than anything else.

Like I was going to tell him earlier, with the Pioneer I had, a low gain setting would solve the problem.. again, this might leave him un an unoptimized position however..

The shield of the RCA has a blown fuse on the bottom of the circuit board? I never knew RCA's had fuses, much less circuit boards... I'm not doubting that what was written at all, I just dont follow :) I cant remember when I had a test light like that!!

Last night, I worked on it extensively. First, I ran an 8guage 12v+ and ground from the battery in the trunk to the center console and then connected the wires to distribution blocks installed in the middle of the console. From there, I ran 12guage 12v+ and ground directly to the radio, to the ESP3, and then a separate ground to a bolt in the the metal frame in which the radio sits. The main 8guage wires that I ran from the battery are twisted together, and look pretty cool (if only looks would solve the problem!). The connections at the radio were done so that the stronger direct 12v and ground feeds were connected to the radio and the factory harness. After doing this, there was still noise. I tried it even without any contact with the factory harness and there was still noise.

Next, I bypassed the RCAs I ran by using some spares lying around from a couple of old Schoche wiring kits (walmart specials) that some customers had once upon a time. the RCA's were draped through the middle of the car to the trunk and then to the amp. Nothing changed. However, what I noted was that when I moved those RCAs while the car was running (moved them = pick them up from where they were laying about 18inches and move them towards the drivers door as if to simulate routing the signal somewhere else other than down the center), there was  a change in the noise and at one point, it actually went away, albeit briefly. I noticed that as I held them suspended in the air and moved them around, the noise intensity changed. So, I shut everything down and quickly routed the RCAs along the drivers side of the vehicle. My thought was that something in the center console area was interfering with the signal from the radios. I havent had that problem before in other installations like this but I didnt know what may have changed in 2007 model cars (if anything!). When I got done and restarted the car, the noise was still there. So at that point, I had systematically bypassed the ESP3 as well as the RCAs, grounding of the radio, and power to the radio and stll have noise.

Finally, I pulled out my DEH-P860MP from my F150. This radio has worked wonderfully in the truck: no noise, no issues except for occasionally the motorized face wants to act-a-fool and not open on demand. The sound output is great. So no problems with this unit. I put it in the car thinking that this would work and still, STILL, I have noise, even with the "other" RCAs run, even with the new ground and power, and even with just the old RCAs. So the bottom line is that I had no success.

Now, I did not examine the ground from the alternator to the chassis but I did look at the ground from the battery to the chssis and I didnt really care for it. I havent changed it yet only b/c it was late last night, nearly midnight before I got through and I have a 5:30 rise in the morning (er, this morning). The ground is a 4guage cable running from the batter to a piece of metal about maybe 1/8 inch thick coming up from the trunk floor behind the spare tire (like right next to the back wall). There's a bolt securing the cable to this piece of metal. It maybe perfect... I dont know yet. I didnt care for it, it looks too flimsy for me. Regardless though, when I come directly off of the negative of the battery with my ground wire to the amp and to the radio, I am bypassing that anyway. So, would it make a difference?

Also, I know the "rule of thumb" (anyone ever see the movie Boondock Saints?? if you havent watch it--not only is it really cool but it has this whole "rule of thumb" scene in it) is to run the amp ground no more than 18inches from the amp... or so I've read and have been told. In spite of that, my amp's ground (and 12v+ for that matter) is 8guage wire, 6feet directly to the battery. Would that cause/contribute to the problem?

I hate to think that all of a sudden, the amp developed noise. I dont have a 2nd amp to try. I might be able to run RCAs to my wifes Memphis 3004 or to the Kicker ZX460 in my truck using barrel connectors and so on, to try to play the signal through another system that way?? I'm grasping at ideas at this point b/c I dont know what to do. I've run into one other vehicle like this in 20 yrs of doing car audio work. That was a 95 BMW Mark III from California. A fellow installer and I had the task of redoing everything in the vehicle. No matter what corner we turned, what we used, or anything, that car was cursed with noise from hell.

so which way now? and thanks so much for the replies to this. I can take pictures of any of this if anyone wants to see them.