Like the title says, I was curious where people with e36's ground their headunits? do you need to drill a hole, can you attatch the speaker wire to a preexisting bolt or something? How much work does this involve? does anyone have any pictures. Any help would be greatly apprectiated.

-best
jordan

Good question. I attached mine to the ground (black wire) in the harness and I am getting some slight engine whine through the speakers.

There was a harness and two additional wires attached to my stock head unit. One was the antenna, but I'm not sure what the other was. Was it the weatherband antenna, or a ground possibly? Anyone know? '99 with HK

my installer also attached the new alipine to the factory harness. I also get slight engine noise (worse at night with lights on) hopefully someone has an answer to this

I grounded mine to the metal support that is just to the right behind the OBC. There is a bare metal support there that already has a screw in it that is easiely accessable. I just soldered the ground wire to a screw down terminal and attached it to the screw that was already there.

i was getting the same symptoms as everyone else using the factory harness.

so I used a PG TiDD10 that is grounded in my truck to the factory bolt (the same one the battery is grounded to). since i was already using the TiDD for my amps remote leads, fans, line driver, i decided to give it a shot, and it worked awesome. so i am using it to provide the constant power, and ground for my H/U, and still use the factory harness for the ignition lead.

I'm not suggesting everyone go buy a DD, but that if you have noise, try grounding it to the same place your amps (factory or not) are grounded

That's odd because I also connected the HU using the factory harness. But, I don't get any symptoms of what you guys have mentioned . Maybe I guess I got lucky. Anywho I say ground it as Pink Floyd states.

I grounded mine to the metal support that is just to the right behind the OBC. There is a bare metal support there that already has a screw in it that is easiely accessable. I just soldered the ground wire to a screw down terminal and attached it to the screw that was already there.

Cool, and you aren't getting any engine whine? So you just connected the ground from the HU there? What about the black from the harness? Is that connected to anything or no?

Cool, and you aren't getting any engine whine? So you just connected the ground from the HU there? What about the black from the harness? Is that connected to anything or no?

Here is a picture of my setup. As you can imagine I am not using any stock wiring harness or adapters. Actually, to clarify, I grounded my LCD screen there. My headunit is in the glove box so I grouned it to a metal support that is right next to the passenger door. For that one the metal was painted so I had to sand it down and drill a hole to mount the terminal.

I had TERRIBLE alternator whine and this completely cured it. What you need to do is not create a "loop" with your 12v+ and ground wires. Your wires come from the driver side of the car, so you want to have your ground wire come from the passenger side. I think that if you ground your HU to the metal support behind the OBC you will completely sure you whine. Don't worry about the black wire from the harness, it is just another ground wire and won't hurt anything.

http://home.nyc.rr.com/jeffcamera/pics/bmwlcd.jpg

Here is a picture of my setup. As you can imagine I am not using any stock wiring harness or adapters. Actually, to clarify, I grounded my LCD screen there. My headunit is in the glove box so I grouned it to a metal support that is right next to the passenger door. For that one the metal was painted so I had to sand it down and drill a hole to mount the terminal.

I had TERRIBLE alternator whine and this completely cured it. What you need to do is not create a "loop" with your 12v+ and ground wires. Your wires come from the driver side of the car, so you want to have your ground wire come from the passenger side. I think that if you ground your HU to the metal support behind the OBC you will completely sure you whine. Don't worry about the black wire from the harness, it is just another ground wire and won't hurt anything.


Thanks :buttrock

I'll hunt around for that screw behind the OBC. Nice setup you got there btw.