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.

Fosgate3 wrote:

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if for some strange bizzare reason, connecting the ground directly to the battery had an impact... I dont know

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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.

Would an alpine work? I have been an XM customer for some time and would want a unit that is XM compatible.

I hate to hear that too. I just paid over $180 for this one, just now and it's not one I can just take back. Thank God my 860MP hasnt cause any problems... still though, and I'm not at all doubting your knowledge (please don't think that), but why would a radio that is working fine in one vehicle act up in another? The 860MP works great in my truck, no sound problems at all... and the truck has a full system in it (AudioControl ESP2, Kicker ZX460, 6.5 Resolution components up front, Memphis Studio 5x7's in back, Kicker DX700 on one Kicker 10L&). what would cause that? I can understand this particular Pioneer having a malfunction and causing problems but I'd think that if you took one that you knew for certain was not at fault and connected it to the system, then you would have essentially eliminated the HU from the equation. Why is that not the case? is it something about the electrical system in the car that is interfering with the signal outputs/circuitry of pioneer's HU's?

Well, I guess I'll have to face the turmoil of getting another HU. I was thinking of a Kenwood Excelon KDC-X591. It has all the features I want anyway and sorta wished I found it prior to the Pioneer. Anyone want to buy a near-mint Pioneer?? lol

I'm trying to be optimistic and light about the issue... it's sorta a downer though. I dont feel the car has a mysterious problem; however, if I get another HU and it still does it, that's going to be a nightmare, just like the Vette mentioned above or the Mark III i worked on years ago. I thought as one last test with the exising HU would be to take to the battery in the trunk and connect it directly there and rca's from there to the amp to see what happens. I'd think that if the radio truly was at fault, it would cause noise that way too. if it didnt, then something is amiss with the stuff in the dash or en route to the amp. The amp still could be an issue i guess... at this point, its confusing.

Fosgate3 wrote:

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I'm trying to be optimistic and light about the issue... it's sorta a downer though. I dont feel the car has a mysterious problem; however, if I get another HU and it still does it, that's going to be a nightmare,

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Yea ... misery loves company right?  I mean I've sunk $1000 into phantom problems like that too man.  It really sucks.

I mean... do you have a discman lying around?  You can get a headphone jack-> stereo rca plug from Radio shack for like $6 or so and try running your amps like that.  I've tested HU problems like that before. 

FOSGATE3 wrote:

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Would an alpine work? I have been an XM customer for some time and would want a unit that is XM compatible.

I hate to hear that too. I just paid over $180 for this one, just now and it's not one I can just take back. Thank God my 860MP hasnt cause any problems... still though, and I'm not at all doubting your knowledge (please don't think that), but why would a radio that is working fine in one vehicle act up in another? The 860MP works great in my truck, no sound problems at all... and the truck has a full system in it (AudioControl ESP2, Kicker ZX460, 6.5 Resolution components up front, Memphis Studio 5x7's in back, Kicker DX700 on one Kicker 10L&). what would cause that? I can understand this particular Pioneer having a malfunction and causing problems but I'd think that if you took one that you knew for certain was not at fault and connected it to the system, then you would have essentially eliminated the HU from the equation. Why is that not the case? is it something about the electrical system in the car that is interfering with the signal outputs/circuitry of pioneer's HU's?

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Vehicles do play a large part in the ground plane with the Pioneer units. I too have had my run ins with the vehicle and Pioneer combinations that have caused me grief. I'm not saying that the HU is more to blame than the vehicle but with the combination of the two, you will get problems. As far as another HU, if you have a buddy with an Alpine, Sony or whatever, just use that for now and see if you have the problem or not. You don't have to buy one, just ask to borrow one to find out if the problem is in the HU

I called a friend who has a copper chassis Denon unit he would let me test this with. Also, in regard to the comment with the Diskman from Sedate: I thought about something like that earlier in the day... I have an Archos GMini mp3 player that I can use as a source unit. I keep forgetting that I can use it for that.... so I will connect it tonight and see what is going on. I would think that if the RCA's, amp, wiring, the car, etc. was an issue, it would do it no matter what source unit I had, be it a radio/cd, an Ipod, or an mp3 drive such as the Archos.

I will post more later.

Did you do what was suggested with the test light yet? This little thing may solve all your issues.

I dont have a test like that anymore. However, I did try grounding out the shield of the RCAs. When I did, the noise became much worse. I also tried my mp3 player as a source, the noise was barely audible. Interestingly, after I did that with the mp3 player as a source, I couldnt get the noise to come back, unless it was by grounding the RCA shield. It was there before, there this morning but right now, it's gone, or at least to a point that you have to listen pretty hard to hear it. I revved the engine to about 3000 or 4000 rpms and still nothing. I did notice my switched 12v connection to the factory wiring was a little loose, to the point that the  unit was shutting off while I was trying to move it around. Aside from that, I didnt see anything unusual.

Okay... this is long but I want to be thorough so everyone will know what I did and did not do. Here's how it has gone so far this morning:

I pulled out the HU this morning and connected my mp3 player up as a source. When I did this before, like a tard, I left the Pioneer HU connected in order to get the remote feed. This time, I tapped the remote feed into another 12v source to get the amp to turn on. When I did this, I still had noise. Next I took a pair of plain-jane RCA's (instead of the streetwires that I had) and ran them outside the vehicle to the amp. No noise. Of course, I could only run one set at a time so I just ran everything into the rear first and then the front... no noise at all. After that, I pulled the 860MP HU from the truck and used it with the plain RCA's.  That checked out okay. I tried the new 590IB unit and that checked out fine too--I didn't hear any noise in the system. During this check I was only doing either the front or the rear channels, but not all 4 together. From that point, I stripped everything out the car, pulled the streetwires and tried the same thing with them. I was thinking that either the RCA's were faulty or I made a mistake by running them through the middle of the car under the console. What I found was that the Streetwires produced noised without having them hooked up to the HU, as odd as that may sound. I just held the RCAs in my hand and noise was produced. Without using a HU, I did the same thing with the cheap plain ones (and thought back to an earlier reply to this about how someone goes with the cheapest RCAs he can find) and the cheap ones did not have noise. Again, I was connecting them to one channel at a time. So, I decided to run the plain ones and not the Streetwires. I did that, both sets all the way to the front, to the hood release. I kept the car running while I did this and had both sets (all four channels) connected,  just to listen in case noise popped up. When I got to the hood release, I connected them to the 860MP HU and low and behold, there was noise.

After cussing a bit, I moved the RCA's out from where I just ran them. I noticed that depending on where I held the RCA's (this is all on the drivers side), the noise grew louder and would return to the normal volume... strange. I was thinking it was interference from something but I couldnt think of anything that would cause that. I went an rechecked the RCA's one set at a time and found out that both sets were fine... on the rear channel of the amp. However, when I plugged in the front side after the rear were already connected, noise was produced out of both front and rear speakers. I disconnected the front set from the amp, the noise went away. I swapped the RCAs at the amp and everything was still cool though I kept thinking I was hearing a nearly inaudible hum. When I connected all four channels back, the noise returned. If I kept just the rear connected to both the HU and the amp and the front connected to the amp, the noise was there. This happened no matter what set I used on the front. Noise was present regardless. This also happened if nothing was on the rear but the front was connected AND the amp's "signal source" switch (I call it that b/c I dont have another name for it) is switched from using both Front and Rear signals to using Front only. If set on using Front and Rear, the amp works without any apparent noise on the EITHER the front side or the rear side BUT NOT when all four channels are used.

I tried grounding the shields of the RCAs. That made the noise worse. I did this at the HU. I did not go back to using the mp3 player as a source b/c with it, I could only do one channel or the other and I already established that the rear worked great but the front side didnt. Also, I tried using an PAC SNI-1 on the front channel when all four channels were being used but that didnt do anything. 

So... what now? new amp? It is a coincidence that I had such a similar problem with the Rockford 551x. I ended up having to bridge everything off of one channel until I could get a different amp. If there is a problem in the amp, is something I could look for and fix?

Update...

I got a new head unit, a new Clarion DXZ665MP from last year's line up. I wired it in this morning and the noise is still present with no change at all. So now, given that it has noise with two head units, both new, and with several sets of RCAs regardless of brand or anything, I'm leaning towards the amp. Does anyone else have any ideas?

I rerouted the RCAs on the passenger side of the car, well away from any factory wiring. That didnt change a thing. I also noticed that the noise gets louder if the rear gain is turned up. The noise is still present when the gain is all the way down too, just not as loud. I can turn it up about halfway before the noise begins to get loud. Everything is being run off the rear channels of the amp b/c the when both the front and the rear RCAs are connected to the inputs of the amp, as stated before, the noise is quite loud. I noticed that the front gains do not seem to affect the intensity of the noise like the rear RCAs do. I plan on testing a different amp in the car later in the week.

Does anyone think a run of 4 guage cable from the negative post of the battery in the trunk to the alternator casing under the hood would accomplish anything? I was considering that as well as moving from the point on the casing that the cable attaches to a factory ground point I found on the engine block.

1.  Have you measured your amplifier and HU ground return values?  Are they ALL less than one ohm?

2. You may need to change your attention to your vehicle's electrical system.  Check for broken insulation on spark plug wires, cracked distributor cap, bad ignition coil, cracked insulator on a spark plug, bad plug, bad ground on your ECU, bad ground on your fuel injection system (if the car has EFI) etc.  If the issue is in the ignition system nothing you do with the audio system will have any effect.

3) Have you gone hand-over-hand on every inch of all speaker wires to make sure one or more is not shorting to ground somewhere?

I have a headache.

I finally got my hands on a 2nd amplifier today, a PG XS4300. I changed it over and noise is still present. I decided to start over in troubleshooting at this point and re-examine what was going on. So, I took the xs amp and wired it up to the battery with amp just sitting in the trunk. The battery in this car is in the trunk so the run of power cable is about 15 inches or so and fused of course. I didnt use anything I ran in the car. For the signal, I used my mp3 player and some F-to-M Yadaptors and connected the mp3 player to all four inputs. The mp3 player also just sat in the trunk about a foot from the amp with the signal cable lying on the floor of the trunk as well. Test speaker was a 4" Altec Lansing (like that matters). No noise at all, sounds beautiful. So, Question #1 is "Does this suggest that the charging system is okay if there is no noise in this first phase of testing?"

Next I kept the amp and power the same but then used the RCAs in the car that I ran. Noise was present. So, I pull the radio and disconnect the RCAs from the back and noticed noise was still present, more so in the Rear set than the Front set. I then ran a set from only one output of the radio outside the car, over the two open drivers side doors and into the Yadaptors at the amp. I still have noise, at the same minimal but present manner that it had been at. I went to do what DYohn suggested in his post, point#1. In fact instead of just measuring it, I went ahead and clipped the Clarion's ground wire and ran a new one over the seats to the amp and grounded it with the amp. Still have noise.

So, by this point, I'm grasping at straws. I decided to see what happens if I moved the RCA that I ran outside the car from where it sat draped over the doors to moving it to the roof. Magically, the noise went away. When I moved it back, the noise returned, still at its same level. Since I cant drive around with RCAs flapping in the breeze, this really doesnt help me any. I also tried to see what would happen if I bridged the speaker to the amp instead of having it stereo. When I did that, the noise went away but there was a feint buzz. I tried then to use the already-run-RCAs without even connecting them to a source and the noise was feint in the Front set and much more significant in the Rear set.

By doing all this, I have eliminated DYohn 3rd suggestion and depending on the answer to the "Question#1" above, the 2nd may have been taken care of too.

I'm at a loss and am losing my confidence in my ability to install at this point in spite of all the years I've done this successfully. I keep thinking of DYohn 2nd point and the first thing that comes to mind is "this is a brand new car and none of that should be going on". I dont know...

There are multiple ways to introduce noise into your system.  I am not sure if any of what I am about to say has been tried since I dont feel like reading your whole post but here are some ways to troubleshoot it.

If you have a nasty engine whine first I would do is to check if it is infact engine whine, is it whining while the motor is not running?

Check your grounds first, take a magnetic tape head wire it in series to a mini jack and plug it into a self powered speaker (found at radio shack) turn the speaker up and place the tape head over the grounds and listen to them, if you hear a lot of whine then it could be the source of your troubles.  I like to listen to the chasiss prior to utilizing a grounding point.  This tape head is also usefull for routing RCA's and power wires (yes I was an member of autosound 2000 a long long time ago for those who remember this).

That thing with the tape head... that's interesting. I'll check it out. You'd have the car running while doing this I'd guess, right? Head unit on but volume down to zero?

Oh and yes, the answer to the first question is "no". With the engine not running, there is no noise. The noise seems to fluctuate with the temperature?? as crazy as that sounds. It's more prominent in the mornings, less in the afternoon. It's very loud in the morning until I turn on the mp3 player. Since I listen to hit nearly all the time, the HU is left on it's Aux setting when I park the car.

Fosgate3 wrote:

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That thing with the tape head... that's interesting. I'll check it out. You'd have the car running while doing this I'd guess, right? Head unit on but volume down to zero?

Oh and yes, the answer to the first question is "no". With the engine not running, there is no noise. The noise seems to fluctuate with the temperature?? as crazy as that sounds. It's more prominent in the mornings, less in the afternoon. It's very loud in the morning until I turn on the mp3 player. Since I listen to hit nearly all the time, the HU is left on it's Aux setting when I park the car.

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Yes the car would have to be running, but the audio equipment would have to be off.  A possible reason why you might have more noise in the morning could be due to you alternator working a little harder warming up the car and charging your batterie/s. 

Do you have any grounds or positive wires crossing your RCA's or positives really close to your grounds?  You can also try to ground your HU where your amps are ground to and see if that eliminates your problem.  Do you have a passive eq or active x-overs?  I was running some Rane Eq's and they were a little on the noisy side till I grounded them to where my amps grounds.

Oh, and you might have issues with your RCA's and the path they are routed if you are taking an RCA and running it outside of the car, see if you have any grounds or power leads running next to your RCA's.  If noisy RCA's are the issue you can always run some steel braided sleeves over them and ground them the reverse direction of your signal flow.

I forgot what Hz alternators operate at but if you have a large cable going from the alternator to the battery then you have a huge potential for inducing noise into your system.

If you are located in the Dallas area I would be money I can find your problem within an hour.  I dont work at a shop anymore or work on systems except my own but I am always willing to look at some work and help with troubleshooting.

I'm about 4 hours from Dallas in West Monroe, LA. heh... if I cant figure it out, i may look you up!!!

I'm pretty certain there's a cable from the battery to the alt... that would only make sense. I wonder if re routing the cable (likely re-running it with 2 gauge) would help.

The alternator is a possibility that I havent forgotten but I've been postponing that until after I've tried everything else. Demon's comment about the power wire running from the alt through the car to the battery made me think "well duh! that makes sense!" And as Demon said, it may be b/c the mornings are when the alt has to strain the most to charge the battery so the whine is more intense at that point. Since the power from the alt is carried through the car from the front of the car to the trunk, then any alternator noise created has the potential to travel along with it. Thus, if the theory stands, anything carrying a signal en route to the battery is suspectible to be a carrier of the noise too. ... and of course, this could be completely off base and I could be wasting time looking at everything else but the alt.

Yesterday evening, I tested some aspects of this idea and ran a set of RCA's along the roof of the car, on the passenger side to the processors under the passenger seat (eclipse 2101 --yes i know it's an eq-- and AudioControl ESP-3). The input to the processors stayed routed the same way... just the output to the amp was changed. Doing this made a significant difference. In fact, I was able to use both front and rear RCA inputs on the amp with nearly non-existent noise. I had to strain to hear it in fact. That minimal amount couuld be resulting from how the input signal is run or something in the processing. Still, it was more than tolerable and could be considered successful. The idea was that if the alt cable is potentiall carrying noise, then running the signal as far from it as I can could alleivate the noise. What was more was that I pulled over on my drive home and was able to turn the gains up on the amp which I couldnt do before without significantly increasing the noise.

This did well until I arrived at home and turned off the mp3 player while the car was running. When the player was off, the noise came back very loudly. When I turned down the radio, the volume of the noise subsided. The gains on the amp are not much higher than half way (about 2/3 to 3/4 on the front and between 1/2 to 2/3 on the rear). So this time, I'm thinking input RCA routing still needs to be adjusted or turn the gains down on the amp which would suck since I'd have to turn the radio almost wide open to get what I want. I'm going to start by testing different runs with the input. Also, I'm going to reroute the power cable going from the battery to the alt from where it is now goign through interior of the car to running it along the frame on the underside shielded in conduit. Since the factory wiring looks to be 6 gauge, I'm going back with 4 gauge ofc cable (20ft by KnuKonceptz).

I've made some progress in this: Using the 8 gauge power and ground that I ran from the battery in the trunk to distribution blocks in the center console (see a previous post a couple of pages back), I grounded not just the radio, esp, 2101, and srk5 to it but also connected the cigarette lighter receptacle in the console to it. This is the receptacle that my mp3 player connects to. I clipped the factory wires and capped them off then ran replacement wires from the receptacle to the distribution block. Secondly, I ran the RCAs through the headliner and down the side wall where the seat belt is on the passenger side, to the processing equipment. All this made a significant difference in everything. The noise is at a very minimal, tolerable level--considerably better than anything that I've heard in the car prior to now.  

My next step is to rerun the main power cable from the battery to the alt, as I mentioned above. I received my order of 4gauge cable and will run it this weekend under the car, secured to the chassis, all the way to the passenger side (as opposed to the factory cable running through the middle of the car, inside the car). Then, I'm moving all the processing equipment to the drivers side (it's under the passenger seat now) as well as my RCA cables, routing them through the headliner as before.

Bit by bit, its coming.

I've already bypassed everything in the car several times now and have run simply the different HU's and amps, even the mp3 player (minus the cigarret lighter) as a source. At this point, I've done this with multiple amps, multiple HU's, multiple RCA's, etc. I put the "other processing equipment" in just b/c I know it's not the problem as the problem existed without, didnt change with it. I can go back and do it all again but it's not going to help. The only thing thus far that has made any difference at all is what I just wrote: moving the RCA's through the head liner, well away from the factory 6gauge cable that runs from the battery to the alt, and redoing the ground for the 12v point that the mp3 player's charger plugs in at.

Yes, for the meantime, it is 8gauge which is suitable for amp that wont draw more than 40amps of current (in spite of the 50amps of fuses) for mids and highs.... especially on a 5 to 6 foot run. Eventually it will be stepped up to 4 gauge when I add a distribution block and the two Kicker DX700's that I havent started on yet. Gots to fix this first issue *wink*.

As far as the first point made for DYohn, I wish it was that simple for me.. I probably would have identified it about 2 wks ago before I ever made the post. Unfortunately, this is intensely complex. But yes, as stated, I've eliminated all in-between stuff. thinking back now, I dont think I posted that I got my hands on a 100% working PG XS4300 and put it, the mp3 player, and a set of RCAs in the trunk of the car with the battery. The XS was wired directly to the battery. The mp3 player was running off it's own battery, not using the car charger or anything. The RCAs were coiled up on the trunk floor. No noise. I kept the amp where it was,  used the same RCAs but moved the mp3 player through the car to the front,  had noise. Continued to have noise with the HU (just as before) with the same amp. So, that pretty much elminated the amp, I'd guess. I feel it did anyway. *shrug* I dont know...

Since my last post on this subject, I've done several things:

Because the factory power cable from the alt to the battery ran straight through the middle of the car, I ran a new 4 gauge cable shielded in water tight conduit underneath the car, secured to the chassis. This goes from the battery to the alt. That didnt do anything. I found some succes though when I ran the RCAs through the headliner to the processors under the passenger seat (from processor, up the passenger side, through headliner to the rear deck to the amp). That helped some but not alot.

Working off that idea though, I pulled everything out and ran new cables along the drivers side through the head liner from the back of the Clarion radio to the rear corner of the trunk. That made a significant difference. The cables were by KnuKonceptz, of their Krystal Kable line. In the rear corner of the trunk, I installed an AudioControl EQQ and ESP3, as well as my Clarion SRK5 center channel amp and kept all the cables central to that location. There was no change in the noise with the addition of the equipment, or at least nothing that was extreme. Now, it is extremely faint and at times, nonexistent. Everything is run through the headliner and that was the only way I could elminate 98% to 99% of it.

During this process too, I upgraded all my wiring to the amps: 1/0 to a distribution block both for power and ground, and then 4 gauge power and ground from the blocks to the amps. No run is over 6 feet and the connections are made directly at the battery. The processors and the head unit, as well as the 12v factory outlet that my mp3 player's charger plugs into are all wired through this system as well, eliminating as much of the factory wiring as I could. This has to be the hardest car I've ever worked on.  I'm sure there are some out there who think that either I'm exagerating or that I dont know what I'm doing but I'm telling ya--this sucker was a tough one to beat... and I'm still not entirely done.

In the meantime, thanks to everyone who took time to read and respond. If anything new develops, I will post.

I'm still fighting the whine-noise issue in this 07 Saturn Ion. I've gone back and re-troubleshot everything in the system a couple of times since the last post and one thing I noticed that I may have over looked last time (or knew and forgot to post?) is that with the RCA's discconected from the PG Octane amp on the mids/highs, there is still a whine present. Also, the noise gets louder as the gains are turned up. Right now, I have reconnected all the additional parts of the system back in as there wasnt any change in anything with the other components left out. I have the amp virtually all the way down now and am using the adjustable input and output gains on the AudioControl EQQ to "adjust" the output level. Doing this minimizes the noise to some extent. Meanwhile, the amp is still grounded directly to the battery (the battery in this car is located in the trunk), and I just came in from running 1/0 from the negative of the battery to the alternator chassis and then ran from the alt. chassis to the frame of the car, just to secure the ground. There didn't seem to be any change in the noise.

To recap, the components in the car are:

Clarion DXZ665MP
Archos GMini AV402E mp3 player added on to the Aux input
AudioControl EQQ
AudioControl ESP3
Clarion SRK-5 center
Phoenix Gold Octane 50.4:4
(2) Kicker DX700, each going to a Boston Acoustics G5 dvc 10” sub
All RCA’s are KnuKonceptz (copper shielded, well built)

So far, I have…

Swapped HU’s
Used alternate source units (such as an mp3 player)
Changed amps
Re-routed RCA’s several times with all sorts of bizarre things happening with that
Re-did the factory power wire from the alt in the front to the battery in the back
Re-did the factory ground
Wired the HU directly to the battery
By-passed everything
Changed RCA’s 3 or 4 times
Grounded the RCA's
Checked resistance from negative post to amp (right around 0.3ohms)
And sacrified four cats and a dog….

Nothing has worked.

that pretty much sums up the previous four or five pages of this post. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Have we tried removing the AudioControl pieces from the signal path?    These 3 or 4 sets of patch cords you replaced, were they all the same brand.  As sedate said in the first response to this problem, I to am a big believer in the cheapest RCA cables are usually the most reliable and longest lasting.

yes. I've removed everything multiple times. Today alone, I had only the amp powered on with no RCA's attached and still had noise. I've run RCA's from the amp to alternate sources (like another cd player or my mp3 player) with no luck, even running the signal outside the car, over seats, etc. The only progress I made was running the RCA's through the headliner by going from the HU, up the drivers side pillar, through the headliner, down rear drivers side pillar and to the amp which is mounted on the underside of the rear deck (and it's not touching metal at all but mounted on a vinyl covered MDF amp rack). Yeah... I started off with the easy things like that way in the beginning before I ever posted this. I wish it was something that simple.

I was thinking back to something DYohn mentioned about measuring the resistence and I may have overlooked a measurement. In measuring return resistence, is that from the positive side of the amp back to the positive post of the battery? I didnt measure that, if it was. I just measured from negative point at the amp to the negative terminal at the battery and since everything is directly connected to the battery, it was a very, very low impedence.

I've been trying to think of where a ground loop would be but I cant imagine anything anywhere since everything is getting its negative and positive directly from the battery and now directly from the alternator too (alt to batt to amp)

I disconnected the speaker wires from the amp and tested continuity with the ground at the battery but I did not discover anything ground... no resistence read at all on anything. When I did this, I forgot to check the AC voltage and I wont have my car until Wednesday at the earliest--the hood is getting repainted due to rust under the paint (yes, its a new vehicle with rust on it... all under warranty). I will check the AC voltage then. In regard to that check, am I to check at the amp or at the battery or at the alternator?

I just had a thought: do you think that having the battery in the trunk is what could be causing the noise?  In the very beginning of this system, long before I got the bass or even used the Phoenix Gold amp, I went first with a Rockford Fosgate 4channel. It was installed well, directly wired to the battery and had noise. It was a used amp and was given to me so I thought maybe it was at fault. Since then, I've realized that it wasnt. Oddly enough, even before I did a system in the car, I had a horrible noise with my mp3 player connected to the factory radio through an 1/8inch audio connection. I never understood why there was noise and it seemed to only be present when the charger for the mp3 player was plugged in, and only heard when connected to the factory system (if you used headphones on the mp3 player with the charger plugged in, there wasn't any noise that I recall).

Sorry if I misled you: there is only one battery in the car. Saturn puts the battery in the trunk on the passenger side and runs a 6 gauge cable through the car to the driver's side firewall, going through and then across the front of the engine compartment to connect to the alternator on the passenger side of the engine compartment. I wish so much that the battery was up front like it is on other vehicles. Though it may be completely and utterly unrelated, in my mind, I'm thinking it has a lot to do with it all. I will check the AC voltage at the battery in the trunk on Wednesday and post the results. What's your theory on this? What are we looking for or not looking for with this check?

In regard to that 6 gauge factory cable I just mentioned: I originally thought that all that cabling going through the car was causing interference, especially since the intensity of the noise would change as i moved the RCA cables further and further away from the floor of the vehicle where the cable was located. As a result of this idea, I took out the factory 6 gauge wire and ran a length of 4 gauge OFC cable (better quality than the factory) straight down the passenger side, underneath the car, from the battery to the alternator. This didnt change anything. As of Sunday evening, there is now a ground cable run parallel to my 4 gauge power cable going underneath the car on the passenger side from the battery to the alternator.

I need to put a meter on another car to tell you what voltage we should have. I am thinking it will be in the millivolt range.  But I will put a meter on a few cars tomorrow.  How hard would it be to connect jumper cables from another car?  Try it with both cars running, then kill your car and see what happens with the other car running.  

it wouldnt be hard. I can pull my truck up to the back of the car and connect jumper cables from the bat of the truck to the bat of the car. Hopefully I'll have the car back tomorrow evening, if not this evening.

The good news is that of the three cars we have in our house, the saturn is the only one with problems. The truck (1995 F150 xcab) has yet to have any issues since I built it in 98 and my wife's car is excellent (04 Impala). Both also have pretty elaborate systems.

I forgot to put a meter on some cars today, but if I forget tomorrow it looks like you have a couple there to check.  Just chec all 3 of your cars and if the saturn has a lot more, we might have a direction.

Okay. it's right at 9:30 pm here so i'll wait till tomorrow. I should be able to do my truck at work. I'll be in it b/c the dealership has not finished painting the hood of the Saturn. I'm going to measure each one at the battery and I assume I am to have the vehicle running when I check it. 

I've read a lot about an alt having a faulty diode but dealerships typically wont even touch something like that so as long as the alt is charging. I'd replace the alt but thats a good $90 or more with no certainty that it will work. Is there a way to test for this?

I finally got my car back from the dealership yesterday evening and just came in from running the tests. Here's what I came up with:

measuring at the battery, with the DMM set on the 2 ACv setting, the AC voltage of the three cars were

1995 F150 = .010 to .011 relatively consistently with an occasional increase to .012
2004 Impala = approximately .018 to .020 with frequent dropping as low as .016 and increases as high as .026
2007 Saturn (suspect car) = approximately .027 to .030 with very frequent changes down from .023 and up to .031 

Using the jumper cables, I connected them to the F150's battery and the saturn. The saturn was not running but the truck was and there was not any noise in the system. I did this check twice... the first go around I had my input level adjustment of the AudioControl EQQ set way low as this was the only way to minimize the noise while driving. So, I reset it to zero, turned the gains up on the mids/highs amp to about 1/3 way up and and started the car to make sure that the noise was definately present. It was at that point that I did the second check.

something i discovered today was that a bizarre high-low pulsing noise that I always attributed to the bigger problem with the noise was actually related to the mp3 player charger. but thats not something to worry with now.

so where does that take us now? we have direct grounds from alternator to frame to battery and everything (including the HU) with the system is wired to this. there's a direct power supply from alt to the battery and then powering the system. RCA's are well away from anything, as far as I can get them without having them flap in the wind outside the car. HU, amps, RCA's have all been swapped with no success. ... this is exhausting!

so... any ideas?

i did some calling to see if any parts stores had a rectifier assembly for this car but no one seems to. if it is this, i'll end up taking it to a repair shop I suppose. i wish there was a definate way to know for sure.

How hard would it be to remove the charge wire from the alternator?   Start the car and see what happens. 

I just came in from doing the check. sorry for the delay there... There was no noise at all with the power cables disconnected from the alt. Everything sounded good.

In response to your last question, I did with the truck running but the saturn off. I figured that would be the a way to tell if it was the car's alt or not b/c the battery's juice would be coming from the truck's charging system and not the car's. I did not do it with the truck off and the car running though. Do I need to do that at this point?

It was a whine that I got that changed with the RPM of the car. I just happen to have a PGold 1/2 F cap not being used. I may be able to find a place to squeeze it in by the alt. I would figure the closer, the better, but what's an ideal distance... or would it matter? Since the battery is in the trunk (OEM location), I have a cable running from the alt to the trunk and a lot more room to mount back there. I also have a cable running from the frame of the alt to the negative battery post and then to the frame there too so the ground is easily accessable. Will this do or is that too far?

Replacing the alt versus having the rectifiers replaced... either way can be costly on a tight budget. Since it is an 07 model car, the stator and bushings and all *should* be fine in the alt... but so should the rectifiers!

The closer the better, but if you hook the truck back up and with the saturn running you have no noise, the truck battery is the capacitor.  If it helped or eliminated the noise and it is easier to do it at the battery, try it there.  It should do a little better near the Alternator.

I'll do that and will repost hopefully tomorrow evening. It's getting late here and I am in the middle of preparing dinner, taking care of other things. Look for an update soon.

Thanks a lot to for the help thus far! 7 pages of material here and this is really the first point that something of substance is coming up. Thanks also the12volt. I guess 7 pages was the point that an admin says "enough" and steps in! lol

I appreciate it and will update soon.

well... no luck. I installed my half-farad phoenix gold cap but there was no change in anything.

what next?

If you added some grounds to the factory system try disconnecting them the only thing I can think is that you created a ground loop.  Also is there a computer mounted to the vehicle floor?  If so try isolating it from the chassis of the car.

I am only 3.5 hours away from you with an air conditioned shop.  More than willing to try and get it fixed for you.

To my knowledge, I am not aware of any additional grounds to the factory system, except for the ground cable run from the alternator housing to the negative post on the battery and to the frame but that was way at the end of my struggle and did not impact anything with the noise. I think what I am going to do is take everything out and start over, piece by piece... reinstalling everything again, one single item at a time. Like I said, I'm not aware of any ground loops anywhere but that doesnt mean none exist.

Where are you located? you can reply in a PM if you care to. If I cant get it this go around, I may just take it to you though time and money are critical points.

Was there anything out of the ordinary with the results from the AC voltage test? You mentioned also that you wanted me to have the jumper cables connected from my truck to the saturn but the truck not running and the saturn running. I can do this still, if you think it will help diagnose an issue. What should I expect to occur?

No one on this forum can say with certainty what your issue might be because it is impossible to do via the Internet.  We can only make suggestions, which you have followed pretty well.  I suggest you may need to take the car to a good professional automobile electrical shop in your area and ask them to run a full set of diagnostics on your electrical system with special attention to spark noise. How new are the spark plug wires, the distributor cap, and the plugs themselves?  Sometimes all you need to do is a complete engine tune up.  It is also possible your ECU is bad or has a bad ground, and a good shop can test for this too.

Finding and fixing ignition system noise is maybe one of the hardest things to do in car audio, and I know several people who trade in their cars for a different model once they realize how difficult it can be to track down.  Expect to spend some time and money if it's in your ignition system.

ha! I've already considered trading mine in too! unfortunately, I still owe a good amount on it. This is a 2007 Ion with 31,000 miles (I work about 60 miles from home) purchased new in October 2006. So everything on it is pretty new. Prior to making that move (and after much deliberation today), I'm going to exhaustively go through the entire system, essentially take everything out and reinstall, just to make sure there was nothing simple missed, nothing overlooked, looking for good and bad grounds, etc. When everything checks out and nothing significant found, then a check by an auto tech will be left. I hate to bring it to someone and spend the money and then realize it was something simple all along that I could have found if I had reviewed everything. When I get done with this check, I'll post back.

Fosgate3 wrote:

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In regard to alt whine vs ECU noise vs ignition noise vs spark plug wire noise and so on... If the noise was from a component other than the alternator, wouldnt I still hear it during the test I did earlier when I disconnected the alternator and started the car (and consequently had no noise)?

---

Not necessarily, although this does point to the alt or the voltage regulator.  But modern cars work in mysterious ways.  You need to go visit a good auto electrical shop and get some testing done.

Well, like I just said:

DYohn] wrote:

---

ou need to go visit a good auto electrical shop and get some testing done.

---

Yes, i read that the first time and am going to have the alt and other items looked at as soon as I can afford it. The post I made about the muting plug was an topic out of curiosity and not something I intended to be about my car per se. I thought about it after reading Forbidden's info about muting plugs. It may be more helpful if it was left as a new topic instead of bringing it in here.

That sounds like an easy check but there isn't a pioneer head unit (there was originally but it has long since been replaced with a Clarion). I'm sorry I dont know the abreviation: what's a PCB?

Unless this is something totally different from all the other things that have been tried and done, I dont think this will really shed much light on it all. DYohn and iamaidiot are suggesting more of a fault somewhere in the vehicle and at this point I agree. I worked on the car Tuesday afternoon, evening and then into the night till around 10pm, then again yesterday again. Then again this morning for another two hours before going to work... all efforts were pointless. I totally removed the head unit and just kept the amp powered off of a switched 12v in lieu of a remote turn on. I redid the ground to the amp even though the original was reading 0.3 ohms. It was a somewhat lengthy run of 4gauge. The new one is 10inches and has 0.4 or so for a resistence measure. It didnt matter. I played around with RCA routing patterns too to see if it mattered where they went. at some points, I got a noise free system but no matter which way I went, everytime I came close to the location for the HU, where the ECU is, I got noise.

I've called an automotive tech who does alternator repair and explained it to him. I hope to take the alt to him next week after I get paid. I'm willing to try other suggestions in the interim though if you have any ideas. I made a post in thread on the last page or the one before in which I posted the results from checking AC voltage at the battery. I'm still curious to know if those readings were good or bad.

PCB = Printed Circuit Board     There is a fuse on the bottom of the board on most Pioneers. 

Hey when you checked for AC voltage on the 3 cars, what kind of meter did you use?

I've never tried or heard of that technique with the RCA cable. The cables inside are twisted and shielded so I couldnt imagine this working. Besides, I think there's enough evidence to point to the alt and other vehicle components.

There was a difference in the ground resistance  at the ground point for the ECU: it registered 1.2 ohms instead of the 0.3 - 0.5 that I had seen before.