I just finished my dad's install (not true, there's still one wire to solder) and everything is fine except there's static noise. as soon as the amp turn on, I can hear noise in the speaker that is quite annoying. I'm pretty sure that noise was absent before I run the rca wires under the carpet. i'm using a crappy amp for now (jensen 4ch) but have used it before in my car with no problem. I have no engine whine btw. should I look at the ground (I sanded off the paint but used one the the trunk hooks bolt) or try a different amp right now ?

 

Hey, did you tap into the factory amp or did you do away with it completely? if you tapped into it, check the tap and make sure it is really secure, also, you might want to clean the rca pins, just in case there is some residue on the surface, although this is unlikely to change anything. on my old honda, i had a huge electrical problem and no one knew what was wrong. long story short, it was a bad ground. so you might want to just go over everything once again, even though this is tedius, it could save you a lot of hassle later on, unless you know what you did was a good job, then it could just be the amp or smthing else.

 

Try a ground loop isolator to see if that's it. They're $17 or so at Radio Shack, but the one from PEI is better for SQ. If that's not it, you'll want one of these laying around for troubleshooting anyway.

Next take another source, such as a walkman/ipod/portable stereo and plug it directly into the amp to make sure the noise isn't coming from the amp/wires/speakers.

Next take another rca cord and run it on top of the car to be sure it's not radiated noise into your RCAs.

Also, verify that when you tapped into the harness for your preamp signal from the HU, that you got the audio common, and not the actual ground wire. If you soldered RCA jacks here, you can use a RCA(female)to 3.5mm(female) cord to plug in headphones and verify the source signal.

Once you isolate the problem it should be a lot easier to fix.

 

Yes! do what he says; his is a great approach.

 

I re-sanded the grounding point the the noise got down by a good bit. there's still some but it may come from the amp. I'll probably try another grounding point this weekend, or another amp