I have recently upgraded my stereo with a subwoofer amplifier. It consists of another four channel amp powering my mids and highs. After running larger gauge power wire from the battery to the distribution block I am now greeted with ignition noise. I have run the RCA cables on the opposite side of the power ones. Do you think an in line noise filter would remedy this problem. thank you for any advice.

 

did you mount your amp to a piece of wood and then mount it to your car? if you mounted your amp directly to your cars metal this will give you ignition noise. Also did you ground your amps "ground wire" to a good ground less than 5 feet from the amp? if not this would also cause ignition noise. If you bought cheap RCA cables this would also cause a noise problem.
good luck

 

The grounds are less than 5'. I mounted the amps on a piece of plexiglass on the rear hatch area. The RCA cables are Phoenix Gold, but they are fairly old, I was thinking it was the RCA cables also, thanks for the advice, I will check it out.

 

Try to avoid using a noise filter if you can and fix the actual problem. Did you use RCA cables that use twisted pair construction? Do you know how to use muting plugs? Where did you ground your equipment? Are they all grounded to the same spot?

 

I am sure the RCA cables are not the twisted type your talking about. I dont know what muting plugs are. My grounds are seperate on each side of the car. I would go out and try to check some things out but this damn tree pollen around here is choking me to death! My car is black but now is green from pollen.

 

The first thing you need to do is ground everything to one spot. Having multiple paths to ground is what causes ground loops.

Muting plugs are RCA plugs that have the center pin shorted to the barrel of the plug. Unplug the RCA cables going into your amp and replace them with the muting plugs. This gives the amp a zero volt input. Start your car and turn on the stereo. If the noise is gone it is entering your system further upstream from the amps. Possibly because you are not using twisted pair RCA cables. If the noise is still present you need to try a different grounding point on the car. Make sure you have a clean metal to metal contact between the amp's ground and car's chassis.

Start with those and see what happens.

 

That's what I was gonna say. Sounds like a ground loop to me.

 

Where is the best place to ground? I have a similar problem, Its not the deck or the RCA's it could be my ****ty lightning audio amp, but im not sure.

 

Make sure NO wires are near any of your ignition parts especially the wires! I had an installer ZIP-TIE my main power wire to one of my Accell spark plug wires and everytime the car was BELOW 1500 RPM, the radio had an awful tick sound to it that varied with rpm! took my like 5 months to figure it out!!

 

The best place to ground is dependent on where you amps are located. Over the axel hump, I like the pass. side wheel well. On the rear wall, I suggest running a bolt through the frame near the bottom.