Hi Everyone,

I've been out of the corvette game for some time now, recovering from back surgery but all is well and I'm able to drive the vette much more often now.

I'm looking to start planning out a system and was thinking that starting with sound deadening would be a good idea. Yes or no? I was also hoping to be able to take care of some of that heat that comes in around the leg area, would the sound deadening material help with this?

Is this the kind of job a beginer can handle? I'm planning on having someone else do the instal stuff but was hoping to knock out the sound deadening if I could get some direction from the forum. Thanks!

 

You'll want to do a search here for things like Dynamat, Frost King, eDead, Reflectix, etc. Also search in the C5 General forum because alot of people deaden their cars solely to eliminate road and tire noise.

I'm on the fence with what I'm going to do. Either eDead from Elemental Designs or a Frost King/Reflectix combination...Reflectix for the tranny tunnel and Frost king everywhere else. I don't need my car to be Mercedes-quiet, so I'll save my money and go with cheap Frost King.

Both FK and Reflectix can be bought at Lowes or Home Depot, eDead at www.elementaldesigns.com and Dynamat at...I dunno...Google it.

As far as I can tell, the install is pretty easy if you're comfortable with tearing your whole interior apart! Carpet, panels, and the dash all are pretty intuitive and come out easily if you know the procedure.

I think I'm going to take a full weekend do the deadening, stereo, CAGS, shifter, 'Rocking Chair' fix, and anything else I can think of. Just banging it out at one time sounds like a great idea to me.

 

I am a huge edead fan and yes this is something you can do yourself

 

Several different brands of sound deadening are available, most working similar to the other. The edead is praised quite a bit here, but I have used Dynamat alot at my stereo shop for my customers, so from experience, it is something you can do yourself, but give yourself plenty of time as it may cause your back to hurt a little as you have alot of work ahead of yourself bent over and in all different positions as you apply the sound deadening.
Take it easy, and do a section at a time.... you should get thru it ok!!

 

I have the Crazy Cowboy insulation kit that still needs to be put on once I return from Iraq.
I hope this sound deadens pretty well and keep the heat off. Planning on doing this along with a new system install (which is still in its selection process). Only positive thing is the Alpine H/U IVA-W200 and the JL 500/5 amp. The speakers are still tossing in my mind, I want to do it right the first time.

What is everyones take on the MOREL line of speakers, not necessarily the ELATE series which by the way are $1200 for the 2 way components (quoted price).
I want the right speakers the the JL amp will be able to push correctly and not too much for the amp (does that sound right?)

Don't mean to hijack the thread with the follow on questions.

 

Thanks for all the responses!!

Time....I've got plenty of time, bought the car in Oct. of 2003 and it has 13,000 miles on it, so it sits around a lot.

But what I'm wondering is if it is worth it for me to do all the sound deadening stuff myself (tearing all the stuff out just to put it back again) and then having someone else do the stereo install. Probably won't be ready to do the install on the stereo (monetarily) for little while so I was hoping to get the sound deadening stuff out of the way if it made sense.

 

Well...you could do the deadening first, then the stereo install later. You'll probably find that your stock stereo sounds much better after the deadening. If you're not an audiophile, this might be ideal for you.

My car's a daily driver, so I want to do everything in one shot, and might even need to rent a car if I can't get it done in a weekend.

What you might consider, if you're definitely going to install a stereo, is to pre-wire everything while the carpet's out. Just run all the wiring you think you need and don't hook it up to anything. You'll have a few pigtails hanging out for awhile, but the stereo install will go much faster without having to remove the carpet, seats, or tunnel cover. Just an idea.

 

There are 2 methods for sound deadening in your car. Mass loading, and sound absorption. A combination of both is your best bet.

Dynamat and the other equivalents are used for mass loading. The thin panels in your will resonate due to speaker or road vibrations causing noise in the car. By adding mass to the panels you lower their resonate frequency and pull it mostly out of the range to where it will be excited by the road and speaker vibrations. This will quite your car down some.

These materials do little if any sound absorbtion. That is where the carpet padding comes in. In the vette we've got some fiber mat kind of stuff. It's cheap and works pretty well for the price. In by old BMW there was like 1/2" think closed cell foam molded to the bottom of the carpet. BIG DIFFERENCE. Adding more foam/padding beneath the carpet, behind the doors and side panels and on the wheel wells will kill some more of that high frequency road noise the mass loading does nothing for. The frost king stuff would probably fall into this category since it doesn't really add any mass to the panels. I'm not sure what kind of sound absorption it has, but it was really designed as a temperature barrier, not a sound barrier.

I am currently doing a system in my vette and I've started my own sound deadening. I'm using Rammat for mass loading and Ensolite closed cell foam for some extra sound absorption. I took some DB readings in my car before i did the work so i'll be interested to see how it reads once I get done.

There are lots of avaliable mass loading materials, but there are basically only 3 types. Asphalt based, Butyl/Asphalt hybrid and straight Butyl (Damplifier Pro). Asphalt is the cheapest and Butyl is the most expensive. Asphalt is harder to work with, doesn't stick as well (especially a few months later) and smells really bad for the first few weeks. I know this first hand. Never going back!!! Butyl/Asphalt are a great compromise and way better than the straight asphalt ones. Options include: Rammat, Edead, Dynamat Extreem, Second Skin Damplifier. All of these are great products. I am having great success with Rammat. It's one of the less expensive and the customer service is TOP NOTCH. The onwer's name is Rick and he is a car audio and autocross fanatic. He is very responsive to e-mail, has awesome information on his website and will make suggestions for what to use in your rig.

As far as sound absorption, the only one I have experience with is ensolite which is also sold by Rick. Its a great product.


Here are some links to my favorite site that have deading info:

Mass Loading Brand Discussion


Discussion of Door Treatments