Romulus

Copied from Z06 section for those who don't frequent that forum..

I recently decided to make some changes to my car in the form of making it more friendly to drive (or drive in). I decided that I hated the stock seats and that it was a little too loud inside. I'd like to take some long trips in it so this was one area I thought would be worth addressing.

After reviewing products online, I decided to go with Raammat/Ensolite from Rick (great guy) and Corbeau seats.

I'm writing this as objectively as possible to give others an honest opinion so they can make an educated decision if they want to follow what I and others have done. I will first say that I am totally satisfied with the service I got from Rick and the company I ordered the seats from (not a sponsor, but they're a major USA dealer of racing seats). Rick was extremely helpful on the phone and via email. I actually ran out of material (got a little over zealous in places) so Rick did his best to get more shipped to me as fast as possible. He had no qualms with talking about car audio, performance, or anything else the few times I called him. Thanks Rick

Corbeau's

I ordered standard A4s in black micro-suede with lumbar support for the driver's seat.... Oh by the way, make sure you order the lumbar support for the passenger seat if you only want it on one of them.. I guess I've been a little stressed with work lately and forgot that I would be switching them, so now whoever rides with me will have lumbar support, but not me. Doh.

The seats were $1048 shipped with two C5 brackets. The brackets seem to be high quality and are nicely finished.. or as nicely done as a bracket can be. In any case, they don't appear cheap or flimsy. They mounted right up and I was off to the races. One note, after reading a review of a guy who said he felt like the seat was tilted forward at first, I went ahead and used one washer on the rear bolts and 3 on the front to tilt the seat slightly. It feels fine to me now.

They were not really that hard to install, but I did have a bit harder time installing the passenger seat (took 10 minutes vs 5 for the driver). That being said, there is constant pressure between the seat and the plastic trim covering the seat belt reel.. I hope it doesn't crack.

The seats themselves are relatively comfortable. However, I would *not* want any more aggressive of a seat for a daily driver. These are easy to get in and out of, but they definitely hug me. Also, I am 6'1", 190 with a semi athletic build and my shoulders are too wide for the seat (to actually fit between the side bolsters). Luckily while I drive (arms in front), my shoulders don't need to be flat against the seat, but on a long road trip this could get tiring. This is my major complaint and over the next few weeks will be the deciding factor if I keep them or not. That being said, the seats feel *fantastic* going around corners. They offer superb support and I can really feel exactly what the tires are doing. The stock seats left me bracing myself between the door and console with my knees. The A4s have made corners fun. I may consider the A4s if I had it to do over again, but I'd also look at seat covers for the stock seats.. I know they can be quite expensive (the cost of an entire aftermarket seat), but it might be worth looking into.


Raammat/Ensolite Install

My Z06 is mostly stock with the factory exhaust. The exhaust is a nice volume for me, but on some highway pavement, the car is unbearably loud. I have new tires and at times I can't even talk on the phone because there is so much road noise.

I'll give my subjective and objective(ish) review for the material in a minute. First, the Raammat was easy to work with (despite my fingers getting a good number of superficial cuts across them from the edge of the foil. In all, I installed about 30 squares and the inside of the car is NOT totally covered as I've seen in some folk's installs. However, I got most everywhere taken care of. I did parts of the tunnel, the floorboards, inside the doors, and almost the whole trunk area. This took much longer to install than the Ensolite. Next was the foam. In all (between the first and second order) I installed about 5-6 yards of it and I did not have enough to cover as much as I would have liked to. However, after two weeks of my car being apart in the garage, I was satisfied with what I had. I only double layered in a few areas that I thought would benefit from it.

Subjective: The doors seem to go "thunk" now and close without much drama, where as before they seemed to rattle a bit (like a typical American car). Sounds in the car seem to be more muffled and road noise seems to be down a bit. However, I will say that for the material I put in, I did not get the sound reduction I was hoping for. All in all, subjectively, I think there has been an improvement.

Objective (ish): One of my biggest pet peeves is trying to read reviews of products online and finding it painfully obvious that people way, way over-blow the effect of the product. Eg., gaining 5hp on a 400hp car and saying the car is a "total animal", or "entirely different car" afterwards. Or after installing coilovers, their vette now rides like a "Cadillac", but stays flat in corners. BS. I say it's often times a placebo effect or people wanting to feel good about the money they spent. In any case, I wanted to quantify results as best I could. So, I bought a db meter.

Disclaimer I am not an audiophile, don't have a degree in measuring sound in cars, and am not a professional in any thing involved in this case. I simply wanted to provide some kind of measurable results. These numbers could be TOTALLY wrong, but they are what happened in my case. If you disagree with them and say they are total BS, that's great I know they're not perfect, but they will give some people a clue as to what they might get from similar work. That being said...

I held the db meter near my ear and went through a variety of scenarios. The "A" numbers represent volume of frequencies from 500-10,000hz. "C" weighted numbers represent volume of frequencies from 32-10,000hz. As you can tell, there is a great deal of noise between 32-500hz.

Conditions I kept the same between tests are radio off, a/c fan off, and driving on the same roads. As far as temp, humidity, etc.. as far as I'm concerned those differences are academic and this test is not controlled enough for those to have a great effect. For the speed tests, I drove in a gear that makes sense.. ie, to keep the engine around 2k rpms.

I can't get the spacing on the graph to work very well.. hopefully you can read it.

Remember: A = db between 500 -10,000hz
C = db between 32 - 10,000hz
Results

Set-up Before After

Idle A - 62db A - 60db
C - 81db C - 79db
20mph A - 67db A - 68db
C - 90db C - 87db
40mph A - 74db A - 75db
C - 90db C - 91db
60mph A - 72db A - 73db
C - 91db C - 90db
70mph A - 72db A - 73db
C - 91db C - 91db
0mph, 4k RPM A - 76db A - 77db
C - 91db C - 91db
60mph, 5th gear, max throttle A - 80db A - 81db
C - 97db C - 95db

It seems like it helped in some areas and didn't do anything in others. You draw your own conclusions.


Parting shots - If I get another car as "lightly" insulated from the factor as my C5Z, I will have to think heavily as to whether or not this would be worth it again. If I were to get another C5, I'd likely try to just buy quieter tires and call it a day. That being said, I certainly don't regret doing this and am glad I did.

Here are some pictures. Note: these are necessarily the finished product, but yes, there are some uncovered areas towards the back of the car because I ran out of material (twice). DON'T BE SHY WHEN YOU ORDER THIS STUFF.