Clark;

I had posted that I had the exact same problem when I tried to use an Alpine Amp. During the install (which lasted about 5 Hours) we were plagged with the engin noise problem. We tried different brands of Alpine Amps, we even tried a brand known as Eclips which supposedly is made for the Toyata line of cars. We had noise in all cases.

In frustration my installer suggested we try a Kenwood 4 channel Amp (KAC-848). We unplugged all the cables going to the Alpine and connected them all to the Kenwood, HEAVEN! It was so quite and clear, I was reassured that I did not waste my money on the EMPEG. If you can lay your hands on one of these units, I would say by all means use it.

The best thing about the Kenwood is that you do not even need to use the cables that came from EMPEG to ground the RCA cables to the AMP chasis. The Kenwood seems to take a floating ground and do the right thing.

I have been a happy camper for the last week, driving around town with a silly grin on my face and ... but I digress.

Hope this helps.

Kamau Wanguhu
[email protected]