Engine whine in lancer

[Timmos]

hey guys, non commodore related i know, sorry.

But a buddy n i installed a full stereo (4 channel and mono) in his 06 CH lancer today and ended up with SHOCKING engine whine.. I suspect it to be a dodgey amp seeing as its used and about 2 years old...And i've never had engine whine in any other install, but replacing the amp is last on the list. It's powered by a 4gauge wire split into 2 8 gauge. and ground with 2 seperate 8 guage wires
So here's what i noticed..
The whine significantly is increased/reduced as you adjust the gain up or down on the 4 channel amp.
We changed the ground point several times and scratched the paint away.. didn't change anything
All RCA's and power are separated..

Any ideas what we should be doing now?

[holdenboy]

Head-unit brand?

[ratz26]

mate head here ..
Mitsubishi Club Australia | Welcome guys there will help you out

[Timmos]

Head-unit brand?

Off the top of my head, Pioneer DEH-6150 (the one with bluetooth)

[Timmos]

mate head here ..
Mitsubishi Club Australia | Welcome guys there will help you out

Thanks but i have no desire to sign up to Mitsu Aust. Engine whine is a common thing and wouldn't be lancer specific..

[holdenboy]

Well its more than likely the "RCA fuse" inside the head-unit. It basically blows when you connect / disconnect RCA cables from an amp when the stereo is on (a no no). But ive heard of it happening without doing this.
A good way to test if it is the fuse is to remove the head-unit (while its still plugged in and on, car running) and using a small length of wire, touch one end to the metal frame of the stereo or an earth, touch the other end to the outer ring of the RCA plug while its still plugged in, the noise should disappear if its the RCA fuse.

As its a soldered-in fuse its not a simple task to replace, so if youre not good with circuit boards / soldering i suggest either taking it to an electronics repair shop to get it fixed or you can bypass this fuse by soldering the wire from the outer ring of the RCA to the chassis. If that makes sense, haha.

[Timmos]

Well its more than likely the "RCA fuse" inside the head-unit. It basically blows when you connect / disconnect RCA cables from an amp when the stereo is on (a no no). But ive heard of it happening without doing this.
A good way to test if it is the fuse is to remove the head-unit (while its still plugged in and on, car running) and using a small length of wire, touch one end to the metal frame of the stereo or an earth, touch the other end to the outer ring of the RCA plug while its still plugged in, the noise should disappear if its the RCA fuse.

As its a soldered-in fuse its not a simple task to replace, so if youre not good with circuit boards / soldering i suggest either taking it to an electronics repair shop to get it fixed or you can bypass this fuse by soldering the wire from the outer ring of the RCA to the chassis. If that makes sense, haha.

Thanks! I have heard of this happening also, but never seen it in person. So in a sense i should ground the RCA?
If it does turn out to be this, do you think pioneer would warrant it? the headunit is only a few months old..

Can i ask, what makes you think this would be the reason over all the other possibilities?

[holdenboy]

Yes, but you need to ground the RCA at the head-unit, thats what ive done and its worked. Ive also just soldered the wire as i described to my Pioneer head-unit and its fine (has been for a year or two now).
Not sure whether Pioneer would warrant it or not, you could wait until StoneX comes online and views this thread, he's in that industry so he'll be able to give you a more accurate answer, my opinion is it could be worth a try.

Im almost sure its the reason because its so common.....plus youve ruled out the other common causes (like amp grounding), i'll be very surprised if its not the problem.......can always try another head-unit if youre not confident thats the problem

[Timmos]

Alright mate, i'll give it a go and wait for StoneX's reply about warrenty.

Cheers

[StoneX]

If it's inside the warranty period, it will be covered by warranty

I'd recommend sending it to Pioneer in Melbourne directly rather than taking it to a store though. A store can hold the unit for a while before sending it somewhere and then it's likely to go to a local repairer who doesn't know of the fault and do all sorts of weird things to it At least Pioneer themselves will know what it is straight away

[Timmos]

If it's inside the warranty period, it will be covered by warranty

I'd recommend sending it to Pioneer in Melbourne directly rather than taking it to a store though. A store can hold the unit for a while before sending it somewhere and then it's likely to go to a local repairer who doesn't know of the fault and do all sorts of weird things to it At least Pioneer themselves will know what it is straight away

Thanks mate, And good tip about sending it directly to melb.. i defiantly would want to avoid strathfield car radio at all costs.

I went there yesterday to buy a 4 to 2x8 gauge power distributer box, The bloke i was speaking to um'd and ah'd about it for around 10 minutes then handed me a hi - low converter. After another 5 minutes of confusion i went behind the counter and spotted one within a second.

[boneart]

As Holdenboy said, ground it to the head unit.
It's not how solid the ground connection is but rather where it is. Grounding to the headunit gets rid of any "ground loop" issues which is very likelyy the problem.

[Timmos]

Ok, i grounded the RCA, the noise sort of faded but was still noticeably there.

in other news.. not long after the amp literally caught on fire.. (this thing was very old and was a "POWERVOX". I'm guessing the dodgey amp may have something to do with the noise, so we're replacing that and hope for no noise.