Where to ground??

[1990lumina]

Hey guys, another question about my amp install.

 

Everything is working well still, however the amp is picking up all the electricial things happening in the car (wipers, rear defrost, windows, brake lights, turn singals, etc)

 

It was suggested to me that I may not have a good enough ground.

Where/what should I ground to?? Right now the ground wire is on one of the studs that the amp it mounted to (not touching the amp though)

 

All these things were happening befopre the amp though, just not as apparent. My friend's dad said it sounds like a capacitor is gone out somewhere...but I'll try to relocate the ground wire first. Just don't know where.

 

I have a 1990 Lumina, and the amp is mounted upside down under the rear window in the trunk.

 

Thanks

 

- Jeff L.

[DiscoStudd]

I found an out of the way spot on the "rear firewall" (for lack of a better term,) scraped some paint off, drilled a hole, and attached the ground wire with a leftover license plate screw that had a large head on it...

[slick]

Make sure that you do not have your power wire running close to any other wires in the car. I realize that running through the dash you may get close, but try to get it as far away as possible from any other wires.

 

Also, same go's with your RCA's. If they are ran on the same side as your power wire, run them on the seperate side.

 

Do as Disco said, and try that ground. If not, a good place is the seat belt bolt underneath the rear seat.

 

If that doesn't work, then it sounds like its nothing to do with the amplifier itself, more so just that it has "amplified" the problem.

[1990lumina]

Thanks Slick and Disco. I'll try those suggestions in a few days after it cools off here, both downstairs, and outside

[Puggsley456]

I myself ground my amps to the metal framing of my rear seat. And the point that gets lost in all of this is that your problem may not be from the amp to the ground, it may be from the Chassis to the negative battery terminal, or the chassis to the engine block ground. A dirty or corroded conection in any of those points can cause some seriously anoying issues.

 

When I added my sub amp I actually added to all of these grounds new 4guage grounds.

[1990lumina]

I myself ground my amps to the metal framing of my rear seat. And the point that gets lost in all of this is that your problem may not be from the amp to the ground, it may be from the Chassis to the negative battery terminal, or the chassis to the engine block ground. A dirty or corroded conection in any of those points can cause some seriously anoying issues.

 

When I added my sub amp I actually added to all of these grounds new 4guage grounds.

 

K, I finally got off my ass and changed the ground up in the trunk tonight, and still I have this annoying problem with it amplifying every frickin little thing like the turn singals, alternator, brakes, wind shield wipers, rear window defrogger.

 

So anyway, I've concluded my amp to ground is fine (I have grounded it to the frame behind the rear seat (I sanded the paint off first)

 

So, where do I look next? H/U ground? Also I noticed battery negative to ground and chassis to engine block ground. So, where are these other two major grounds located in my 1990 Lumina? I can't use my stereo while the engine is running now with my new JL speakers because I started it up today and "WWWEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!" from the alternator is all I heard. So I need to get the bitch problem sorted out soon.

Where do I look for these two major grounds?? Do I just disconnect, and remove corrosion and reattach?? Could it also be the H/U ground is messed up? Hell I don't even know where it grounds to, all I see back there is plastic lol

 

 

Thanks, I hope someone can help me out!

 

Oh and I'm running my speaker wire down one side of the car, and power wire down the other now.

[THe_DeTAiL3R]

I know that the ignition (yellow?) wire from the HU is connected with the wipers on my car. (I put a switch to run power if I have the keys out). I'd check there..

[slick]

How about upgrading your grounds in your engine bay.

 

Battery to Block.

Battery to Body.

Body to Block.

 

Doing those seemed to help with dimming lights and such(not your case though).

 

Afterwards, where do you have your RCA's ran? What kind did you purchase? Are they shielded and insulated?

 

What about your power wire? Location that it's ran?

[1990lumina]

Afterwards, where do you have your RCA's ran? What kind did you purchase? Are they shielded and insulated?

 

What about your power wire? Location that it's ran?

 

I'm not running RCAs...I'm running high level inputs from my factory h/u to my Clarion APA450 4 channel amp.

But I'm running all the speaker wire down the right side of the vehicle, and the power wire is being ran down the left side of the vehicle. I'm running the wires inside the rocker panels (if you know what I mean)....

 

Anyway, I'll check out the other grounds and see what's up, thanks!

[slick]

The high level inputs could be your very problem. I'd personally do a line out convertor with a voltage jumper inline. Might help, but then again, might not.

[1990lumina]

The high level inputs could be your very problem. I'd personally do a line out convertor with a voltage jumper inline. Might help, but then again, might not.

 

That sounds like a good idea...however I honestly don't think that's the problem. The thing is, before I installed my amp, and you would have the factory h/u cranked you could hear the wipers for instance....so it has been happening before I installed the amp...which is why I was skeptical about the amp ground being a problem...but now I'm quite sure it's something to do with the h/u...and not the wiring to the amp (I don't know that 100% but I feel there's a problem with the h/u ground since these electrical sounds have always been happening)

 

I respect your opinion though...I'll look into doing that converter thing if I can't find anything else wrong. I'm hoping there's a ground messed up...(I have a dimming problem in winter time at idle with the accessories on...) I dunno..

 

Thanks for the help

[slick]

Definatly not a problem with your amplifier then, so don't even worry about that. Sounds like a few possibilities:

 

1) Bad ground with your stereo.

2) Hell, even the power wire may be fubard.

3) Do the ground upgrades that I spoke of a few posts up. I used 4 guage wire with some heavy duty connectors on the ends. Just remember to keep grounds as short as possible, but DO allow for movement of the engine.

[1990lumina]

Okay thanks for the pointers man...I'll look at it tomorrow and take the necessary actions, thanks again

[sniperi311]

my radio does the same thing, but only in AM not FM or the CD/SD player...thought id say that, any ideas

[Garrett Powered]

I heard you can ground to the rear strut tower studs but I would not trust that even. I went straight through the trunk floor with a rubber grommet and straight on to the frame. Just unbolt the exhaust bracket and sand everything down to bare metal and sandwich a 5/8" ring terminal between them.

 

Under no circumstances should you use the seatbelt stud!

 

One of the worst places to use! It is insulated with tar and sound deadener.

 

Besides, to the frame is much shorter distance. Mine is only 12" w/2 Ga./gold dist. block

[Brian P]

I'm willing to bet it's the built in amplifier in the head unit that's causing the problems. I've been there before.

[1990lumina]

that's a good idea Brian...I still have my old tape deck, i'll plug that in and see if I have any problems....if I do, then I can rule out the head unit tiself (unless both of them are screwed)

[1990lumina]

Well I'm able to drive this car off the Victoria bridge and claim insurance money on it!

 

After plugging my cassette player into the harness and finding the problem still exists - I've determind something is wrong.

 

Anyway, I've determined the noise is coming into the deck through the positive wire....the ground is fine!

I have grounded the deck straight to the car battery. I have taken all the grounds (chassis to block, the the other one) and put them all to negaitve side of the battery to NO avail, so the noise MUST be coming in through the positve side into the deck :x , so short of tearing the dash all apart to see WTF is wrong, I'm thinking of going to easy way out and putting in one of those noise filters inline of the power wire.

What do you guys think of this? Will it work? I know it is just a bandaid, however it's cold outside now,m and I honestly don't feel like tearing the dash apart looking for a shorted out wire or something.

I thought I could also run a postive wire straight from the battery to the deck, however I dunno if that would help or not. Anyway, I've determined the electrical system in my car is the shits lol....

 

Any opinions on those noise filters? To verify, it going inline on the power wire to the deck, NOT the signal wires!

 

Thanks

[cutty]

i dunno if this will help or not but i heard if you run the RCA cable down the same side of the car as the power cable you will get them noises. i have my RCA cable run on the opposite side of the car.

[1990lumina]

Yeah mine are on the seperate side, however the problem is just being amplified by the amp because the problem has always been with the deck producing that noise. So now that noise just gets amplified....thanks for the tip though

[boulevard]

 

How many amps are you running? What size pwoer wire and ground wire? Send this information so I can get some answers tomorrow.

[Garrett Powered]

Well I'm able to drive this car off the Victoria bridge and claim insurance money on it!

 

After plugging my cassette player into the harness and finding the problem still exists - I've determind something is wrong.

 

Anyway, I've determined the noise is coming into the deck through the positive wire....the ground is fine!

I have grounded the deck straight to the car battery. I have taken all the grounds (chassis to block, the the other one) and put them all to negaitve side of the battery to NO avail, so the noise MUST be coming in through the positve side into the deck :x ,

 

 

Come through the positive wire? That is impossible.

 

after reading this. It is your ground for sure.

 

Your ground must be 18" or less and go straight to the frame.

 

Not the battery ground! :gone2far:

 

You just need to take off all the grounds and sand down to bare metal and torque the ring terminals down on flat metal correctly.

[96GranSport]

My suggestion is to have a common ground for ALL of your stereo equipment. The problem with most installs is that several different grounds are used. If any one of them is bad, it only compounds the problem...especially once you boost the signal through your amp. I've set up a ground under the hood using a minimum of 4 gauge wire (The thicker the better) to the same place engine stuff goes. Then run a distribution block either to your inner compartment or to your trunk and use it for the rest of your components...starting with your H/U. I never trust grounds to the body and even less to stuff bolted to the body (Rails, etc)

 

It sounds to me like you had one bad ground and it has compounded itself. The popping is one give away but now that you have the whirring through your speakers as well, I'd bet that is the problem. You mentioned the wiring for your H/U. Start there. The high level inputs will boost any sort of electrical problem you have and then...running them through your amp...snap..crackle..and pop.

 

Had an Escort years ago that I would get popping sound every time I hit the brakes. It turned out to be the wiring harness for my H/U. The ground wire was broken and I couldn't even see it until I went back and checked. A little solder and no more popping.

[GnatGoSplat]

Simple solution: Ground loop isolator.

 

When you ground to different places, you can introduce a ground loop which is when there is a tiny voltage difference between the grounds. This lets all kind of electrical noise in. A ground loop isolator will fix you up.

I had a 4-channel amp and a bad ground loop problem. Disconnecting either the front or rear channels would break the loop, causing the remaining two channels to be noise-free. So I stuck a ground loop isolator on the rear channels and all was fixed.

 

I originally bought 2 of them, one for front, one for rear, but I discovered I only needed 1.

 

Ground Loop Isolator - you can probably get them cheaper on Ebay.

[fender2082]

I used the spare tire bolt... sounds funny, but when you tighten down the big plastic wingnut you have a solid connection between the head of the stud and the frame. Granted, i'm only running a 600W amp, but it makes my ears bleed with no other electrical noise. Food for thought- when I installed my first head unit (before somebody decided they deserved it more than I did!) I got a really sweet audible tachometer as well. Looking into it, I'd bunched up the rca's near the tach wire, and it was apparently just really bad inductive interference. This could be the case with any wire on the car, really. Ironically enough, upgrading to larger speaker wire will actually make the problem worse if you're picking up the noise there. Bottom line, my suggestion? Use a head unit with sub outs... it should have filters built-in to isolate noise problems.