OK, well the latest discovery is that it's not just the ignition that is making noise in the system, but also the heater fan creates a whine in the amps. Also, as the head unit turns on or off, changes stations, or changes CD tracks the HU itself seems to put noise into the system such as loud pops or even what sounds like noise from the CD motor. I'm led to believe that the car is just suffering from horrible grounds and that I am going to have to rewire the entire dash. Upon looking more closely under the dash I have found wires crimped to wires crimped to wires. The head unit appears to be grounded to the parking brake pedal assembly. This ground as well as the ground in the trunk were loose which I have fixed. I tried connecting the cables so that the outer shields weren't connected, but this had no affect on the noise, and I also tried a ground loop isolator but it did absolutely nothing. My gut feeling is that there is a problem with the power to the head unit. I think my next step will be to rewire the HU power to something closer with a little more meat to it. Also, I might attach a ground to the chassis of the HU itself, as it is in a plastic housing and has no metal to metal contacts. The fact that the HU itself is introducing noise into the signal leads me to believe that it is where the noise is.

Does it sound like I am going in the right direction with this? If not I would appreciate any suggestions for a better way to go about this.

Thanks,
Chris

 

Sounds like a plan, watch those under dash areas, there a pain in the knuckles. :cheers:

 

Yeah, it does look tight in there. I'm hoping that it wouldn't be too hard to just drop the bottom half of the dash out so I can work rather than killing myself. I'm afraid of what I might find in there though. ;)

 

Run a "clean" pair of +13.8V (+12V) and Ground lines direct from your Battery, and your alternator whine should disappear. You can experiment with this fairly easily just by connecting the new wire with complete disregard to the wire routing.

-Alan