Anybody else sound deaden their car?

Tazer999

Registered User
Just curious if anybody else has done it. Some of you may know I recently decided to take my dd driver sc and turn it into a show car over the next few years.

Well I gutted it recently (interior and exterior) in preparation to re-do the interior, air bagging, and shaving.

Figured I would post a bit of my experience so far.

If some of you remember way back when I first got the car, I decided I wanted to do some sound deadening to see if it actually had the performance gains that some people claimed. I went out that week, and bought 8 rolls (4 sheets per roll) of Brown Bread, for a rip off price (now that I look back on it). I used 2 rolls to do the drivers side door, then the other 6 rolls to do my trunk lid, and some random spots under the back seat. For the price I spent, I was disappointed in the results. The trunk lid kept a lot more bass in, as well the door sounded like a luxury car when it closed. That was about the extent of the gains.

After that (even though I didn't do a full install), I decided not to continue with the project due to the cost of the materials, and the small gains that I personally experienced.

Fast forward to present day, where I am building a show car. Of course, a quality show car needs full sound dampening, so I started out on the path of a quiet cabin area once again. After doing some research, and reading www.sounddeadenershowdown.com a few times, I decided to go with the B-Queit Ultimate. While this did not take away top spot in his reviews, it was in the top 4, and due to ease of access (depot in calgary) as well as the other features I was looking for, I decided on this one.

Starting out. I wasn't sure how much I was going to use this time, so I started with a 50 sq ft roll (took 2 days to get here), thinking I would probably need 100-150 square feet to do it the way I wanted. I have my entire interior stripped right now, so install is fairly easy for me. I re-vacuumed the entire car, as well as cleaned all the panels with an alcohol cleaner. The roll I got is one huge roll, so you cut the pieces as you see fit. So far my roll is almost done, and I have only done the trunk floor, rear package tray, and backseat area. Looks like I will need another 100sq feet or so to do the door panels, firewall, sail panels, headliner and floorboards.

Installing the stuff isn't too bad, just do it in small steps. Cut the sheet roughly how big you want it, place it over where you want, then remove the paper backing. As you remove it, use a roller to roll the product into place, and try to get it as molded to the panel as you can (use a hairdryer for warmth if necessary). I wore heavy gloves when installing this, as it is very easy to cut your fingertips on the edges of the aluminum backing. To do the trunk area and backseat took me about an hour, which included all of the trimmings, and making sure all bolt/screw holes are still exposed.

Attached are a couple of in progress pics. Once I finish the rest of my roll, I will post the finished pics of the trunk and back seat area. I am doing double layers in some areas (trunk lid, trunk floor, floorboards and transmission tunnel) so that the exhaust and road noise isn't transmitted through the car as much.
 

Attachments

  • sound1.JPG
    sound1.JPG
    78.4 KB · Views: 110
  • sound2.JPG
    sound2.JPG
    100.7 KB · Views: 116
I did the same thing. Stripped the car out completely to a shell with tires, Por-15 painted the inside and underneath, then added B-Quiet. I was conscerned about the side exhaust being too loud inside the cabin. Well it helped but I can still hear it. Stripped the outside of all badging, antenna, etc. Welded up the two seams behind the rear windows, antenna hole, etc.
Good luck alot of work but IMHO you will end up with a very nice car.

Mike
 
Ahh, side exhaust is quite a bit shorter so yah, I guess you can still hear it. Did you do any sound matting over the transmission tunnel and floorboards, or just the b-quiet? As well, did you apply dampening to the outer skins? (IE, reach through the door panel innards to put dampening on outside door skin, as well as rear sail panels and firewall)

While I didn't do the POR-15 on the interior, I will likely do it on the underside when it goes in for the air bagging and suicide doors.

Outside will be stripped of gas cap, front plate, antennae, door handles (can't use em with suicides anyways), trunk logo, trunk release, and side moulding.

It will be a lot of work, and a long time, but hopefully when it gets unveiled in 2009/10 it will be one hell of a head turner
 
Tazer999 said:
Ahh, side exhaust is quite a bit shorter so yah, I guess you can still hear it. Did you do any sound matting over the transmission tunnel and floorboards, or just the b-quiet? As well, did you apply dampening to the outer skins? (IE, reach through the door panel innards to put dampening on outside door skin, as well as rear sail panels and firewall)

While I didn't do the POR-15 on the interior, I will likely do it on the underside when it goes in for the air bagging and suicide doors.

Outside will be stripped of gas cap, front plate, antennae, door handles (can't use em with suicides anyways), trunk logo, trunk release, and side moulding.

It will be a lot of work, and a long time, but hopefully when it gets unveiled in 2009/10 it will be one hell of a head turner

With the dash board out, I did from the bottom of the front windshield to the rear of the trunk including the sides and doors. I did not do the inside of the doors. Sounds like it is going to be a head turner. Keep us posted as to what you are doing.

Mike
 
sound deadening

I used about 75 sq. feet when doing my car. I did everything inside the car except the trunk. My car at one point in time got water inside, ruining some of the original sound deadiner, which was my main motivator, I'm not really into the whole big bad sound system thing. I did both doors and behind the plastic panels that house the rear speakers. I had the dash out when I did this, so I also cut small pieces and stuck some up under the dash to help eliminate some of those 17 year old rattles that are a S.O.B to find. It either helped or its just in my mind that it did, either way i'm happy:D .

P.S Getting all of the old deadiner out is not fun at all.
 
i sound deadened my car with the RUBBERIZED UNDERCOATING... It was pretty cheap, 4 bucks a can, and one can covered almost all of my trunk and rear seat and rear speaker surroundings, it last so long i was able to put on another coat... i still have 3 cans left....
 
Did you notice any gains with it? From the reviews I have read it does almost nil for sound quality enhancing
 
As an update.

I finished the rest of my first 50 sq ft roll. While I didn't concentrate with it entirely in the trunk area, I think 50 sq feet would be perfect for the trunk, trunk lid, and rear deck lid.

After that, you will be getting scare with 50 ft. I managed to do majority of my trunk (minus trunk lid), back seat, and rear deck lid. Once I get the next 100 sq feet here I will post pics of the entire interior finished
 
I used that Rubberized Undercoating in my engine to quiet it. It seems to work well, although, I haven't been able to get the engine to crank or even start since doing it. Maybe I have some bad gas?
 
you guys realize you just roofed your car? Thats what this stuff is..Home depot has it by me:O).Same thing with the brown bread crud. I did my cougar in the bquiet and except for the smell (tar) it worked out pretty well
 
DamonSlowpokeBaumann said:
you guys realize you just roofed your car? Thats what this stuff is..Home depot has it by me:O).Same thing with the brown bread crud. I did my cougar in the bquiet and except for the smell (tar) it worked out pretty well

I'll have to disagree. True sound deadening products are much different then home roofing stuff. If you cheap out you can use the roofing material (usually people use Peel-n-Seal), but this stuff is vastly different from the stuff you get at Home Depot in both composition, thickness, and dampening abilities. The link I posted in my original thread explains all of the differences

You probably ended up using the B-Quiet extreme which is listed in the roofing category. The Ultimate uses a completely different kind of setup, it is butyl based as opposed to ashphalt based (which is why you smell tar). Below is an exerpt from the testing page

When I started this investigation, one of my primary objectives was to figure out why so many people seemed to have trouble with their mat falling off. If you search the Web for sound deadener falling off, you will see lots of cases of asphalt mats failing and no failures that I have been able to find involving butyl based mats. It just isn't possible that user error would be so neatly divided.

I looked at the specifications for products developed for roofing, which many of the products in this category began life as, I saw the problem. Roofing materials are designed to withstand temperatures of 158°F for two weeks without melting. Manufacturers supply butyl products for situations that will either exceed this temperature or duration. Extend the time and the maximum sustainable temperature falls. This explains why some people have had success with asphalt mats for a few years, only to have them fail in a subsequent year. Failure can be disastrous. If you're lucky, the mat will just fall off. If you're not, it will melt - pools of asphalt in your carpet or upholstery or window mechanism.

Another problem with asphalt mats is the smell. You should be fine during cool weather, but on a hot day, they tend to smell like, well asphalt.

Peel & Seal and Jiffy Seal are roofing products that fit in this category. Many people buy them for sound deadening. Of the products I tested, B-Quiet Extreme, Brown Bread, Dynamat Original, eDead v1, eDead v1SE and FatMat are in this group. Many people report great success with one or more of these mats. They are certainly the cheapest option. If you know your car will never be exposed to extreme heat or cold, they may work for you. I'm not suggesting that all of these products have a 100% failure rate under extreme conditions, but I do believe they are risky. Their narrower temperature range also means they will be less effective the farther they get from room temperature. I would not use any of these products in my car.
Butyl with Asphalt filler

I tested two products in this category - B-Quiet Ultimate and RAAMmat BXT. The adhesive layer is butyl for greater temperature resistance and odor control than the SBR/Asphalt mats. Asphalt is added to the butyl to add mass because it is inexpensive. This reduces the beneficial aspects of butyl to some extent, but they are demonstrably superior to the SBR/Asphalt products. They melt at a substantially higher temperature and stay flexible to a lower temperature.

The asphalt content makes these mats less expensive than the products in the next category. If you want to save money and still get a product that will be reliable, this is the category to pick. Please don't confuse products in this category with the asphalt mats described above. If there were only two categories, these mats would be grouped with the next. They have none of the problems associated with the SBR/Asphalt mats. The asphalt is suspended in a nearly inert state and only serves to add mass and control costs.
 
Back
Top