Alt. Whining

Hello everyone, im the new guy!

  I have seen on some other posts about people having there alternators whine. THey all seemed to be bad grounds. I have looked over the sticky on grounds and also the Big 3. I bought a 160 amp alternator and after I installed it, it produced a whining noise.

  Now in the sticky on grounds it talks about checking the resistance from the negative ground of the battery to the alternator. I checked that and its 0 ohms. Then again i may have not performend that correctly (sticky was not all that descriptive imo in what exactly to do). What i did was using my voltometer on 200 ohm mode, connect one end where the battery gets ground on the chassis to the alternator. Basically touching the alternator worked as well as where it mounted. There is no grounding wire for my alternator (not sure if other alts. have one.) Oh, my car is a 96 civic hatch. This produced 0 ohms so i dont think its a bad ground circuit. Any other ideas of what can be wrong?

Also, (to make this a two part question), should i be fine running all 4 gauge wire for the big 3 and my amps and also without running a cap? The amps are a Hifonics Brutus BX1000D and an Alpine MRV-F345. Each amp will run 4 gauge to the battery. The amps will be under my driver and passenger seats as i want to keep the trunk as empty as possible. I figure i should be ok since on your guys' chart, a 4gauge wire can handle 1000watts for up to 8feet.

All help is greatly appreciated as i want to do things right the first time. And since i want to be able to be done fairly shortly as my battery should arrive in a few days.  Thanks!

So you're getting noise in your audio system since you've done the alt upgrade?  While the engine is running, read the ac (not dc) voltage at the battery terminals- this is the amount of ripple on the alternator output.  It should be no more than 250 mV.  4 gauge is fine.

Hmm, ok. So if my alternator is producing too much ripple, it is not a very good alternator, right? The only reason why i disconnected the battery from the running engine was to see if the engine would die or not in order to see if the alternator would produce power to run the engine. It did so i figure the alternator works, but it seems that if it is making this noise then it is producing too much of a ripple, then i should replace it?

I havent tested it yet though, since it is too late for me to organize my cars for a jump start. My battery is dead. I am waiting right now for my SVR battery. The one that is dead was the original battery and i had it sitting for about 2 weeks while i dynamated my entire car. It now doesnt hold a charge. I will do a test tomorrow for the ripple voltage.  If it is producing too much of a ripple, than i assume the Big 3 wont help, right?

btw, thanks for the info guys!

Well, it is not a noise from the audio system since all i have as an audio system now is just a couple 6 1/2's running off a head unit. The amps i mentioned are not yet installed. The noise is somewhat of a whistle that you can hear in or out of the vehicle with all electricals off. When I first had this problem, I monitered my battery when it was running and saw that the voltage slowly grew as it was just idling, so i am assuming the alternator is working. Thats why im stumped as to what it can be. The alternator is working, just doing so annoyingly.

Oh, dont know if this will help or not, (since the alternator does work imo), i bought it off of ebay. . 160amp alt. It was around 175 shipped. Cant remember the brand or company right now but they did have a very high rating and sold a lot of electrical equipment (such as starters and stuff).

If anyone has any ideas, it would be greatly appreciated.