1989 e30 Touring... this is Betty

[DooDanE30]

diggin the rides man

[Nick_S]

Wow that car is going to be silent on the inside with that much sound deadening. Nice work!

[MC Hammered]

The Dynamat does get warm to the touch as it absorbs the heat from the transmission tunnel so I will be installing a layer of 1/4" Dynaliner to act as a thermal barrier.

I am trying to keep the seams between each piece as tight as possible.









Both sides completed and I used one roll of Dynaliner






Test fitting the OEM carpet to make sure everything fits with the new products installed




Unfortunately the OEM carpet does not fit back in with the front pieces of Dynapad installed. The foam on the OEM carpet is molded so well that the 1/2" of extra material prevents the carpet from seating properly.

I did anticipate that this may happen and that is why I did not use any adhesive to attach the Dynapad to so the pieces for the front driver and passenger side footwells were removed.

[MC Hammered]

Now that I have some extra Dynapad in hand I chose to recycle the pieces and use them in the hatch area instead of 1/4" Dynaliner.

This will help a lot with reducing the exhaust noise even more and I save $$$ since I can return the extra box of Dynaliner I won't be using now.

So we begin with my favourite chore of making templates.






The passenger side footwell piece trimmed down fit the width of the left hatch area, but it was too short, so made another template.






Now to solve the spare tire well… I was happy with the end result.

[JCarp90]

I'd pick Betty, too. Veronica looks like a prude bitch.

[defaultName]

Nina FTMFW!

[future rs]

How much weight do you think you have added?

[MC Hammered]

Nina FTMFW!

You don't have to remind me :(

How much weight do you think you have added?

The factory sound deadening I took out weighs about 50lbs

Assuming I use up everything I have:

2 boxes Dynamat = 44lbs
2 rolls Dynapad = 30lbs
5 rolls of Dynaliner = 10lbs

Total = 84lbs

I expect to be in the 70lb range when I am done as I will not be using all of the Dynamat Extreme sheets, so it would be an extra 20lbs of weight compared to OEM but I end up with much better sound and heat rejection.

[TrentW]

bam-a-lam!

[Blackout]

Holy Dynamat.

[MC Hammered]

Now that the interior is done, now it is time to do the doors.

In terms of importance I would have actually put the doors before doing the floor if I had to choose only one of them.

After taking off the door panels we see that only two of them actually had the factory vapor barrier still installed.




Holding the vapor barrier in place is butyl rope. This is nasty stuff and if you are not careful it gets on everything is very hard to get out. After scraping off as much as possible with a plastic edge I used carburetor cleaner to clean the residual butyl off the door frame.

I used a spray bottle with water to give the door a quick rinse and wipe down, then proceeded to spray the inside of the door with Marine Clean (diluted 1:1 with water) to clean the surface from 20+ years of grime.

After spraying the door down again with water to rinse off any Marine Clean I may have missed, I decided to take a hose and clean out any debris that has collected at the bottom of the door. This allowed me to make sure the drain holes on either side of the door corners were clear of any gunk as well.




Since I am not as worried about the effect of heat I positioned the Dynamat Extreme differently than I did inside the cabin. Still overkill for its purpose but I was trying to use up scrap pieces.







The doors now close with a nice 'thud' now compared to the tinny thin metal tone they exhibited before. The "feel" of the door has definitely changed due to the added weight, the doors feel much more substantial to the hand when opening and closing it.

I went for a test drive to see if I could hear any change and the addition of the Dynamat to the doors did have a reduction in road noise.

[future rs]

Good to know! I was concerned about weight in adding sound deadening to the car. I will probably follow suit and do a similar setup.

Glad to hear that adding it to the door improved so much.

[MC Hammered]

Dynamat helps reduce vibrations, however, it is not a great sound barrier and that is where Dynaliner and Dynapad come in.

Dynapad is mass loaded vinyl which is suspended in acoustic foam, perfect for the job but I do not have enough of it on hand to do all 4 doors and these following issues I also have to consider:

- ordering another roll is $140
- there is no adhesive on the back so I have to use spray glue or contact cement
- if I adhere it to the panel and don't like it removal is going to be a PITA
- manipulating a material 1/2" thick and heavy is not easy

Dynaliner is a thermal acoustic foam, however, probably a better insulator than sound block but I happen to have a spare box of 1/4" in hand. So I gave into my curiosity...

To make my OCD happy I tried to use up the scrap pieces of Dynaliner from the transmission tunnel job, luckily there was enough to make medium size pieces.

I chose to not cover up the spine in the center of the door where the outside trim piece attaches in case I needed to remove it.





I had to crack open the spare box of Dynaliner in order to make the upper piece, I chose to make once large piece to install so I did not have to worry about fitting them together.




As you can see in this picture I tried to go as far into the door as possible, but I did not go as high up as possible. I did not think there is much road noise entering the car at the level of the door handle.



The backing from the large piece of Dynaliner (approx 25" wide)



The rear door was pretty easy to do as the top piece used one large panel.






The bottom was a bit tricker so I made a template




Trying to figure out how to make the best use of scrap










This is what is left over from the 54"x32" roll of Dynaliner



During the installation I did do comparisons between the driver side doors (Dynamat Extreme & Dynaliner installed) and passenger side doors (Dynamat Extreme only) and there was a very noticeable change in sound with the doors.

After installing the Dynaliner the doors close with a very solid thud and the resonance of the click when opening the door is greatly reduced. All this is great if I only wanted to impress a valet so I took the car for a test drive.

Impressions?

There was a very noticeable reduction in road noise and the overall sound level of the Dynaliner/Dynamat combination is much lower than with just Dynamat alone installed in the doors.

The tone of the exhaust note is lower and much deeper as I am guessing the higher frequencies are now being blocked/absorbed.

I am very impressed how well a 1/4" layer of Dynaliner on top of the Dynamat reduced the level of noise in the car. I would assume the 1/2" Dynaliner would have a better effect and if one were to go as far as installing Dynapad even more-so.

I still have the 1/8" Dynaliner I plan to use as a vapor barrier and the door cards to reinstall and I believe with them in place the noise levels will be further reduced.

[Erik]

Wow. The "IS" skirts totally tie this car together. I love the simplicity!

[MC Hammered]

Searched the world for one of these head units and it arrived today!

Nakamichi TA-25 (new) and MF-31 5 disc changer (used)