thegrapist Third gear

Join Date: May 2010 Location: South Jersey Posts: 674

I've laid everything down and buttoned my car back up. Here's two tidbits of advice:



1) give yourself lots of time. Taking off the dash is the worst task I've done to date (this is including the timing belt and clutch replacement).



and



2) the heater core does not have a valve that blocks coolant from entering. If it's empty, your cooling system is empty by a serious amount of coolant. I almost cooked my motor that way.



Now back to more pressing issues:



The firewall took the longest by and far. There were so many odd shapes and tiny pieces of dynamat that had to be cut out. That alone took me probably 6 hours with a competent helper. The floors and seat back took about 30 minutes. The trans tunnel took about an hour to do. I didn't have enough for the parcel shelf or doors, I'll probably need 3 more sheets for a total of 48 sq ft (1 sheet at roughly 2.1 pounds, and 1 sheet at 4 square feet). So I'll expect a total weight gain of 25 or 26 pounds. If I feel that the trunk needs some too, it'll probably need another 2 sheets for a total weight gain of 31 or so pounds. If I recall correctly the 01+'s weigh almost 100 lbs more than the 99's, so I'm not too worried about weight at that point. That and my lotus seats each weigh at least 10 lbs less than the oems. So I'm doing alright.



Taking out the dash was a serious pain in the balls. What takes the longest is disconnecting the wiring harnesses from the clips that hold them to the body. The best thing to do is remove the tape that connects the wiring harness to the clip that attaches to the body. Leave the tape on the wiring harness so you know where it needs to be re-attached, then re-tape it later. Otherwise you'll spend 5-10 minutes on each connector for a total of 20-30 connectors. Do the math, it's not worth your time.



Now on to the impressions:



The engine sounds like it's far away. You can still hear it, but the decrease in sound is super significant. Plus my leg/foot doesn't get extremely hot anymore. The trans tunnel is cooler as well. I heard someone else on here put a sheet of DEI heat mat/film/whatever you call it on the inside of their trans tunnel and it kept the exhaust heat from transferring to the cabin. I might try that. Every time I hit a bump, my car doesn't sound like it's going to blow up or rattle into a million pieces, it's significantly quieter and the blows are softer like the suspension noises in my dad's e60. It's nowhere near as soft, but there isn't a single soul that wouldn't appreciate it.



I don't know what part had a more significant noise sound reduction, but if I had to guess I'd think it was the firewall. Which sucks because it's the hardest part to get to. So don't neglect that. If you're going to do it, do it once and do it right. Additionally, there was some oem sound deadening material that was melting on the firewall, you should be able to see it in the pictures attached. So I'm sure that will assist in keeping the cabin cooler. There was some material melted below the seats too. So it's pretty apparent that there were improvements to be had.



I also placed some dynamat on the blower motor where the heater core lives. That blocked out a ton of heat from the cabin since hot coolant is always flowing through it. The only significant noise I hear now is the wind noise. Which is actually pretty apparent once you turn down the other road noise. I would imagine there's no real way to remove that unless you do some serious bondo/epoxying around the window sills. I'm going to try placing some clay there to smooth it out and see if it's as simple as that, but nothing is ever that simple. Besides, the noise isn't that bad compared to the engine/road noise used to be. I may look into using some dynapad under the seats or inside the trunk and on the parcel shelf, if I think more sound dampening can be had, but the way things are now, I'm more than happy with the results. I just wish my hardtop had a head liner, so I could coat it with dynamat without the cabin looking like a reject nasa shuttle.



Good luck everyone, with your sound dampening adventures. Attached Thumbnails __________________

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