Weight Reduction Be Damned - Sound Deadening Install

[drumad]

Here's just a quick and horrible pic of my workspace. Yes, sorry, all my pics will be this horrible unless someone knows how to fanagle an iphone to take good pictures.

Anyways, a quick rundown on my pos. It's a 1991 e30 4dr m42, I've had many different conflicting directions I've wanted to go with it and still havent made a decision. So far it's going to be an "all around DD, hoonable" sedan. Recently, I've replaced every single wear item underneath the car, upped to gc coilovers, new bushings everywhere, etc etc. 24v swap in the future as indicated by the lifter/stand in the left corner. Maybe a thread for that sometime.

With the car back, I've decided to go ahead and redo the interior somewhat. As you can see, the insides are all out minus the rear upper seat and upper deck. Originally, I was just cleaning it as much as possible and simply reinstalling. I got to thinking I should clean up the carpet, so I did, then I read a thread Janderson had about painting the carpet black, so I followed suit.

Afterwards, with the excitement of reinstalling everything, my old inner audio self came out and I decided to deaden the interior and trunk to help with ambient noise and keeping the tunes inside.

I remembered back a couple years ago that www.sounddeadenershowdown.com did comparisons of current sound deadening products and even had their own RAAMAT for sale, which I was going to install. However, their site changed and Don has completely left the idea of covering every square inch of vibrating sheet metal with product to a different method. I consulted with Don and gave him measurements for everything and he pieced together a kit for me. (Yes, his prices are slightly high, but the dude is outstanding and I was considering this as a xmas present to myself)

I ended up with:
60 CLD Tiles
Extruded Butyl Rope
1 85.5 ft² roll MLV
3 sheets 1/4" CCF
4 sheets 1/8" CCF

all to be installed. Areas to be hit will be:

Front/Rear doors inner/outer skins
Floor
Rear Rise and Seat
Upper Deck
Bulkhead between rear seat/trunk
Trunk (spare tire/quarter panels/back wall)

Although this goes against many e30 folks, I ended up with a total added weight of about 120 pounds. :mrgreen:

I'll be adding pictures tonight after I do some more work. This cracked radiator on my DD isnt going to repair itself. :???:

[StereoInstaller1]

If you are doing one of my boxes do not waste your time or money doing anything in the trunk. Whatever you do will not be noticed, since 100% of the boxes output goes into the car.

If you are gonna do a normal car stereo shop box, have fun. You will never ever get all of the rattles out.

[drumad]

^Hm, how about just general road noise for whenever I'll rarely have the radio off?

Pictures as promised, just installed the CDL tiles in the interior minus the floor, that'll be for tomorrow. Yes, my car has a blue exterior and red interior -_-. PO was indeed a POS, but I got a hell of a deal on the car. Anyways...

CDL Tiles


MLV and CCF, that MLV roll is about 80 lbs


Close Up of EBR


Front Passy Door


Rear Passy Door


Rear Passy Door Inner


Quick and Dirty of the Driver Side


Rear... I have no idea wtf happened on the left. I decided to just let it fly for now, I'll have some fresh sheetmetal welded eventually :|.


Rear Installed

[lolcantturn]

How well will those CLD tiles work? They're pretty cheap so I wouldn't mind picking up a few..

[KenC]

Is there any method to the placement of the strips/sheets in the pictures?

[drumad]

I just tried to cover the biggest flattest areas I could find to be honest. It's recommended to hit the center of each panel, but with how the sheet metal was, well, you can see what I did. Tried to sort of focus them on "centers" of "sections."

[KenC]

Dont bother filling that hole next to the ski pass... it's not structural.

[drumad]

I think it's more the eyesore part, even if itll be covered on both sides. I'll end up reinstalling everything and forgetting about it.

[lolcantturn]

How well will those CLD tiles work? They're pretty cheap so I wouldn't mind picking up a few..

?

[drumad]

I'd answer your question but I havent completed my install yet :p. Unless you mean from an install standpoint?

the website has a sound clip of a before and after, here, i'll be nice

http://www.sounddeadenershowdown.com/products/cld

[StereoInstaller1]

I am so glad the "experts" on resonance control have finally caught on.

I have been saying for years that covering the whole panel is retarded.

Unfortunately, my approach has basically zero profit. No one wants to do what I suggest, ever. It costs WAY less money and is WAY more work, so none of the shops use the technology that makes sense.

Basically, the idiots who sell this shit only care about the money, thus the "more is better" approach. Trust me, every training that has ever happened (in all of car audio)is all about the benjamins!

If you tap with a metal object (I generally use my utility knife) you can easily hear the ringing, and a little chunk of "stuff" fixes it. That is the goal of this job, reducing resonances. Basically, if you hit the pause button most cars "ring" for a split second, that is what you are trying to control.

None of the product used in this install will do much at all for road noise unfortunately. In fact, as far as overall noise level, you will get more out of a perfect alignment of the body panels and putting duct tape over the rain gutters.

If you want to make a difference in road noise, do 2 thing: drop your headliner, remove your sunroof cartridge and re-glue every seam or brace in your roof. Use "Windshield Adhesive" Urethane (be careful, messiest stuff ever made) to thoroughly glue every inch, then after 24 hours of drying, use a few strips of butyl based sound deadner. Now you can put the roof back together!

Next, use "The Insulator" on the floor, under the ducting, under everything. Get as high on the firewall as possible. If it were me doing it, I would pull the heaterbox.

In shitty cars (I did a '91 Paseo like this, HOLY CRAP!), that has made a 10 to 12db reduction in broad spectrum noise, but an E30 being quite well insulated will only drop 3 to 5 db.

[drumad]

I opted not to do the headliner bc well, removing windshields to me for the headliner is seemingly alot of work. Unless someone can convince me that it isnt. Hah.

Anyways, I need to POR-15 about 2 small spots of rust on the floor, CLD it, then I'll be starting with the vinyl. More pictures tonight.

[StereoInstaller1]

Yeah, the headliner is like 10000X harder to do

[drumad]

Made some progress tonight. Spent most of my time getting my 240 back up and running.

CLD'd the floor, next stage would be the MLV and CCF install.

Passy Side Front


Passy Side Rear


Driver Side Front


Driver Side Rear


Also got the rear deck done.

[airkhin]

interested to see more! any updates?