...but my car is now thoroughly sound deadened.

I picked up 100 square feet of Fatmat Extreme after doing a lot of research. I knew I wanted butyl-based, and fatmat was the best quality for the money at $1.30 per foot.

I picked up the install last week where I left off before winter weather kicked in. The back half of my car had a layer; it was very weird driving around like that, because you could "hear" how quiet it was compared to the front half. Passengers commented on it as well.



I was suprised to discover the car alarm brain in this location, after a few fruitless cursory searches under the dash. I did some relocation and cleaned up the mess of wires. I'm going to redo all the relays and connections eventually, since that's a mess too, and nothing was soldered. Cliffnet Wizard on the way to program it via pc. I'll probably get the smartwindows module before summer, and maybe a trunk popper. Intellistart IV is installed and working, very nice.



Not quite sure how the floor got so nasty under the carpet, but it took a lot of cleaning to get it like this:



Laying it down...



I didn't get too high up the firewall, since the factory heat shielding is fragile and can't be removed without some dash disassembly. Good enough for now.



I kept the factory heat/fire overlay, although it looks pretty useless.



The doors were especially slow going, since narrow strips had to be used.



I spent several futile hours trying to route the wires for the door lock actuator through the factory location. I finally gave up. Talk about frustrating. I was about ready to drill a hole above the plug going into the cabin, but went with an existing grommet that leads to the fender instead.



That's right behind the interior fuse box.



Seemingly innocent metal burrs and plastic edges become malicious hazards when laying this stuff down. I have at least a dozen nice cuts and a few bruised knuckles as a result, inclusing several that bled profusely. Liquid bandaid is the best stuff ever.

My car is now dead quiet at highway speeds, no more exhaust resonance at certain RPMs or road noise. I was playing my music several clicks below "normal" volume tonight, and it sounded louder and much clearer than ever, so it was worth the pain and install hours. And hours.

I still have maybe ten feet remaining, but i haven't done the hatch yet. Or the roof, although I'm not sure I'll do that. Everything else has one layer.

The butyl-based material is also much lighter than the asphalt stuff I have used on previous installs. The 90 feet I put in only weighed 20lbs. Definitaly worth the minor weight penalty, not even a consideration IMO.

I had to celebrate with a 22 ouncer of the good stuff.

 

looks good.. bet it sounds great... so how much weight did you add to the car?

 

There ya go dude.

 

nice job..looks like your hard work was rewarded.

 

oops.. my bad... guess I should give myself a warning for not reading the post bad.gif

I have been looking into the dynamat stuff.. but if this is better, I might jump on it.. I would LOVE to quiet down the cacophony in the hatch/trunk area..

 

that tib is raped, looks good.

 

LOL

Too bad you went the hard way about it.

The new "Sound Deadener" is Rhino Lining.

 

awesome job man, and yes, liquid bandaid is the best ever.

ive heard some bad reviews given to fatmat, looks like it did the job pretty well for you though. i think most of the reviews were given to the liquid though.

 

Big props on the learning experience! I love when you guys tear the crap out of your tibs and do stuff like this. I think the only thing that may have been a better job, would be to take the extra hours in pulling the crash pad and all dash pieces, the rear cushion, and just pulled the carpet all together, then had it all sprayed down, but even then, how could you weigh all the new rhino liner accurately.

I think if you've done all that work, and damn do I know how hard it gets, then you've been rewarded more than even a better job would have given.

So kick *** man, keep at it.

 

I did pull the rear cushion, seats, everything in the trunk, all panels, the spare, etc. The carpet was out for a week: I even rented a steam cleaner and I can guarantee it will never be this clean again. smile.gif

I didn't want to go with liquid deadener, but if I had it wouldn't have been Fatmat. But it wouldn't have been Dynamat either, which I don't think is any better than other liquid offerings. My last car was testing grounds for Dynamat original, extreme and Dynashield (liquid), and I did the doors with B-Quiet. I still have the Dynamat spray gun, but I didn't want to do liquid for several reasons, mainly because I prefer mat. It does a much better job deadening sound and is easier to work with, no drying time between layers, etc. Liquid pretty much sucks IMO. Rhino Liner is supposed to be the best choice for liquid though, as it dries much harder.
The mat also allowed me to work on the car when I had time. The above pictures are actually over the course of the last week and a half; I was putting it down for just a few hours a day when I had free time. I was driving around with basically just the driver's seat in the cabin for a few days, which was interesting.:

Another reason is that this butyl-based mat is light! I weighed the rolls before installation, and the 90 feet of paper, two center tubes from the rolls and remaining ten feet after installation: I've only added 20lbs as I said above. I wanted to remove the dash and really do a complete job, but I just don't have enough free time for that until this summer. Time and weight were big considerations. I'm not sure how I could accurately weigh liquid stuff, as some of it will evaporate as it dries. But I would have needed around five gallons of liquid, and most liquids weigh 12-15lbs per gallon before drying.

I definitely recommend the Fatmat Extreme instead of Dynamat extreme. The adhesion is excellent, absolutely better than Dynamat, no effort at all to get it to stick. It doesn't conform to deep indents quite as well at the Dynamat Extreme; the aluminum layer would start to break down when I tried to force it too far. But a few slits with a razor blade solves that issue, and I shouldn't be stretching it so far anyway. As for the "scientific proof" on Dynamat's site that their stuff is better, it may be, but I'm not sure I could detect the difference, and if I wanted to I could do three layers of Fatmat for the [cheapest group buy] price of one layer of Dynamat. The two are very similar in construction.


I do plan to get new fenders eventually, since mine have cracks, and I'll use a liquid deadener on them. Probably coat some of the underbody too.


This was a long post.