Eta-to-M50: Build thread

[Jand3rson]

I am doing the M3 harness covers, you're saying I should strip the rubber stuff off the blower motor cover?

[blunttech]

Looking good Josh. Im glad you enjoyed my unusually large package.
I would remove the rubber coating as mentioned and gain a few mm. although on my turbo car I actually had to trim the m3 harness cover to clear the intake. All things have remained the same on all the swaps Ive done and this is the first time i had to do that. Odd

[Jand3rson]

Picked up some stuff yesterday to wrap the trans tunnel in under the carpet, and I think it's been talked about here before. It's called Peel & Seal, it's an adhesive backed/foil faced asphalt barrier for roofing repairs, and it's pretty much the exact same thing as Dynamat. Andrew told me about it and said that tons of MG guys have used it for the same purpose, and had great results with it as far as a heat barrier. A 25' roll of it was only $16, and there should be enough to wrap the tunnel twice.

[Simon S]

Holy crap Josh -
you're not fucking around.
That bay is stripped DOWN !

[Jean]

Get a late model 318i/s firewall blower cover, it is cleaner than the m20/m10 covers w/o having to mod them at all. It has less studs on it and the oem cover fits over it fine.

Covers aren't the same between different models/years...

[StereoInstaller1]

Joshie, the "peel and seal" is a waste of time. Andrew, you can argue all you want, but you know I know my shit, P&S is pointless. It will help, but only marginally.

Do a full layer of "the Insulator" under your carpet, noise and heat are no longer an issue.

http://users.cwnet.com/thall/insulato.htm

Get the double sided stuff if you can.

[blunttech]

do it Josh "now with scrim"

[Jand3rson]

Joshie, the "peel and seal" is a waste of time. Andrew, you can argue all you want, but you know I know my shit, P&S is pointless. It will help, but only marginally.

Do a full layer of "the Insulator" under your carpet, noise and heat are no longer an issue.

http://users.cwnet.com/thall/insulato.htm

Get the double sided stuff if you can.

Not to call you out Luke, but tons of guys say that it worked just fine, but you say it doesn't. Have you used it? I was also going to double it up.

$710 for a roll for that stuff. Can you you buy it somewhere in pieces, or can you get it? They don't say anything about distributors.

[Jean]

Luke - peel and seal is the new volvo lip , comon!

I kid I kid :)

[StereoInstaller1]

Not to call you out Luke, but tons of guys say that it worked just fine, but you say it doesn't. Have you used it? I was also going to double it up.

I am gonna go out on a limb here and say that I have just a wee bit more knowledge and experience than all those guys put together.

OK, more like double all them put together, plus like a 3000X deeper understanding of acoustics, specifically in regards to this exact issue.

Yeah, OK, maybe more like triple.

I first tried "peel and stick" in about 1983 when I had my early Scirrocco with 1600 watts RMS running 4 Cerwin Vega 12's in a 12 cubic foot box. SPL mics at the time could not measure the SPL, they either broke or simply pegged the meter. We estimated it was about 164ish db. 4 12's in that car was easily the loudest car in southern california in the early 80's.

The car was a bit of a challenge in the "noise" area you could say.

When you hit "pause" on my Nakamichi TD1200II, the car basically went "POING"...which is an excellent example of "resonance issues". Typical industry answer in those days was the use of modelling clay between panels. I had roughly 120 lbs of clay in the Scirrocco. I used about 3 rolls of P&S and a full gallon of that white roof coating.

Another fun job was the '77 Land Crusier with the pretty snarly V8 in it. It literally melted the rubber on your shoes on the passenger side. After I did a thorough job with the insulator, you could not feel the heat of the exhaust compared to ambient on a 70 degree day in the same spot that used to melt shoes, with your hand.

So here is the deal: peel and stick will help with resonances, as in it will help stop metal from resonating...which means NOTHING in your case. Less than 15% of "road noise" is from resonance, and that will be well damped from the stock carpet kit. You need to "absorb" noise AND heat. The heat needs to be reflected, as you simply don't have room to "insulate" from it (R30 is 8" thick and cannot be compressed) Your best bet is a material that will "diffract" noise, but the typical "bass trap" technology (road noise is roughly 60 to 100 Hz) even at those relatively high frequencies is still 4" thick, so that ain't gonna work either...especially in the floor of your car.

Basically, the "jute" material combined with the foil will be part absorptive, but primarily reflective for both sound and heat, thus the need for flawless workmanship: a 100% seal is imperative.

$710 for a roll for that stuff. Can you you buy it somewhere in pieces, or can you get it? They don't say anything about distributors.

Grab your phone book and look up "Upholstery Supply". I ain't talking about "JoAnees Fabrics", I mean a real, serious professional grade upholstery supply house. They may have a different name for it, but last I checked you are only partially retarded.

LF

[Jand3rson]

Luke, you should know that I would never question your expertise in sound deadening, properties of sound, etc. Perhaps you missed something I mentioned earlier tho...

I will do some kind of barrier in the transmission tunnel, really the only reason I removed all of that stuff is because it looked like shit, was crumbling, and was all moist and kind of rotting. I don't care about sound deadening. Levent just had the brilliant idea of doing heat insulation under the carpet around the trans tunnel, rather than on the underside.

It will be for reflecting/absorbing heat only. If it deadens a little sound while I'm at it, so be it. I just don't want my feet getting super hot.

[KenC]

I'd be most worried about the smell of P&S... kinda "tarry."

[Jand3rson]

I'd be most worried about the smell of P&S... kinda "tarry."

I came across a few people say this in my research on it, but all of the people that actually put it in their cars said there was no smell, and the one guy that did say it smelled, said it was gone after about a week, and that it wasn't even strong.

I am going to call a few places tomorrow, and see what I can find and for how much. If it's comparable in price, I will try something else and return the Peel & Seal. But I can say that what I did notice is that all of the people that were telling others NOT to use it were people that had never used it, just going off what they'd heard.

[AndrewBird]

I used a roll of it in my Jetta on the flimsy rear bulkhead when I put my sub in. Got rid of ALL the rattles it had. It also never smelled and even in 100º weather, it never got sticky or smelly.

A TON of MGB guys have used it and claim a big difference in heat in the foot wells, which generally get pretty hot. Most guys cover the entire floor pan and trans tunnel with it. Most of them can't comment on sound deadening as a lot of them are putting it in a convertible, which obviously has more road noise elsewhere then the floor.

Jordon also used a ton of it in his current e30 on the doors to stop vibration.

So Luke, quit hatin. ;) It might not be the BEST thing out there, but for the price it's great.

[StereoInstaller1]

I promise if those same guys pulled their P&S out and replaced it with this stuff, they would be happier and the cost is about the same per square foot.