Urgent: Best ground point in boot E36

[Nobimmer 694]

Redoing the back, almost done but got a whole lot of alternator whine...before I run 0 gauge from the battery I wanna try find another spot in the boot. At the moment I am using one of the top shock bolts as the earth...its sanded etc but still whinges.

ANyone?

[Neal 545]

Redoing the back, almost done but got a whole lot of alternator whine...before I run 0 gauge from the battery I wanna try find another spot in the boot. At the moment I am using one of the top shock bolts as the earth...its sanded etc but still whinges.

ANyone?

Negative terminal on the battery would be the best earth , but I suspect your picking up the noise from else where

[3 SERIES 93]

Negative terminal on the battery would be the best earth , but I suspect your picking up the noise from else where

Agreed!

It won't be the earth wire thats causing the noise. Where have you run the power and RCA's? Are they run together or two seperate paths? If you've run them together down the same path thats ya problem, or running RCA's thru the middle.

I recently wired up my e36 with a sub. RCA's down the drivers side, Power down the passengers, Earth from the tow bar bolt in the boot. No noice what so ever.

Let me know, and ill try to help.

Edited January 21, 2008 by 3 SERIES

[BM WORLD 1283]

i agree , dont run power wires next to rca ones and also turn down gain level on your amp.

make sure your headunit has good earth also .

get better unsulating rca cables?

[Yuen 16]

Ashkan, if battery is in the trunk the power cable will run from driver's side into the engine bay, so run the RCAs down the passenger side.

Good grounding point would be the stock grounding point, remove your rear seat backs and it'll be behind the rubber mat. Can't miss it. There will already be a rubber plug that allows wires to run from the boot to the grounding point. It's the most professional way to do it if cable length allows.

[isnowi 0]

Would you by chance be using an alpine head unit? if you can't get a clean sound no matter what you do in the way of signal/power cables then it is possible that the unit itself is damaged, i had one a few cars back that did the same thing, turned out that a track had been damaged in the power supply section of the unit, the added resistance made for a nasty whine that i couldn't get rid of no matter what i did.

The solution was simple in the end....I bought an Audi.

cheers, Dan

[Nobimmer 694]

heres what I did yesterday.

checked all RCA's etc were sweet-didnt work

checked all the earths were fine and ran a 0 gauge wire out of the car straight to amp- didnt work

ripped all the seats/speakers etc out...still wasnt working.

Unplugged the new infinity tweeter from the circuit and tadah was sweet as...so spent half the day trying to figure out why the f**k it wouldnt work.Then I say that the screw I had screwed through the B pillar to hold the tweeter was touching the body of the car and the solder from the speaker wire onto -ve terminal was touching the screw ( i suck at soldering)...just put a bit of insulation tape over it and SAAAWEEEET!

Getting good sound now,just waiting for my D class amp to arrive to power the sub...got my old JVC dummied up for now.

Cheers for the help guys

[3 SERIES 93]

Good to hear you found the problem!

[Nobimmer 694]

God damn it's back...same speaker and everything,must be grounding itself somewhere again.

Next week when my new Dclass amp arrives I'm going to do it all over agian and run all new cables etc etc. Will post pics for anyone intersted.

[GLIDN 0]

your best would be that you may have rca or speaker wire passing over a audio wire?

if so, and you have no choice but to run them over one another. Cross the wire over at a 90' degree crossing.

That should hopefully eliminate your whine, or one other place i managed to pick up whine noise once. My earth on my stereo became exposed and got it that way.

I have no idea how open earth can cause whine, but it did.

Check those 2 things, hopefully you should be sorted.

[Nobimmer 694]

Yeah it's definitly that same speaker just grounding on something random...so gonna run all new wires and replace all the factory sh*t.

should be fun

Cheers for the help man,Rca's are run down seperate sides of Gbox tunnel and don't touch apart from in the boot.

[pfm 0]

Sometimes the experts are a bit misleading in what they recommend.

Don't use a Braided or sheilded cable on Audio line or Speakers.

Use the fattest 2 core multi stranded cable you can.

Stick thru' a shield or even Tin foil wrap the whole thing.

Always seperate 'low level' (audio) from power looms.

Braid earth straps every 1.75m. on the exhaust to body, and extreme cases graphite grease and powder in the tyres - done the lot over the years, but some vehicle are produced only test your patience in the interference department.

Cheers

Paul - E30

Sound Promotions

[PBOY23 0]

are you running 6.5 in the rear ? iv made my packers 18mil mdf

at the front what are the exact make and model ?

[Five Star 0]

Pfft rears.

Are all your amps grounded in the same place?

There's mixed opinions on RCA's picking up noise from power wire, with a lot of people saying it's impossible. But I figure it's not worth the hassle to find out..

If you list all your gear and check all your wiring that'll help a lot.

Have your RCAs ever touched? That generally buggers up pioneer units good.

As long as you're not going for 130db+ , if it looks like a strong connection and it's all sanded you should be fine.

[Nobimmer 694]

Running 6.5 rears yup.

Fronts are infinity Kappa components and the rears are JVC something or rather.

JVC 4 channel 80w RMS amp for fronts at each channel

Sony D class 650 rms monoblock amp for sub

Infinity Kappa (i think) Sub

Using 0 gauge wire cos I had some lying around.

Will do it all again and let you know how it goes