So, earlier last year (2008), I was coming back from a Braves game, and had my trunk packed with tail-gating stuffs.. cooler, chairs, grill, you name it.. lol. I took a turn too quickly, and the cooler tipped over, resulting in a nearly flooded trunk. Later that day, after that had happened, I gutted my trunk to allow the carpet pieces to dry, and not rot away sitting in my trunk.. Well, it's been almost a year, and I still haven't put everything back in!! haha, besides.. I shaved nearly 70lbs out of my trunk!!!! Why not?! I don't do any long-hauls or any crazy distances, so honestly, a spare tire is sort of unnessecary for me.. lol (please don't flame me!)

I decided instead of looking into a bare trunk, or throwing the plain-jane carpet back in (that's probably lost and seperated into about 3 different corners of my basement by now).. I decided to remove some of the other sound deadening material, as well as two (2) of the 3lb ballast weights in the trunk.. (yadda yadda, I know that they're in there for a reason... weight balancing), and I also sanded down everything to bare metal and had made a few stitch welds in some areas to add to the rigidity of my trunk (mainly around the base of the upper shock towers)... doubt it does anything, but got bored with the Miller... lol, well bored in general!!! Finally, I ended up spraying my trunk with spray-in bed liner, after taking 4 hours to mask everything off and other misc prep... Then while I had the rear factory strut bar out of the car, I decided to sandblast that down, hit it with a coat of primer, then hit it with 3 coats of univeral gold, and 2 thin coat of clear.. (same color as my calipers, and tow hooks)..

Overall, I think it turned out pretty good.. Hey, I think it looks better than stock!! But, that's just my opinion.. Who needs carpet! This is my daily driver + track car.. So, just thought it'd look pretty cool

(ps, if you don't have any positive or constructive comments... keep them to yourselves... I don't care much for car audio or NOS bottles hooked up in my trunk. lol)





Thanks guys!!

 

U go girl!!

 

I really like it. It's funny how much larger the trunk space gets when all the panels/carpet/spare is removed. I really like how you painted the factory rear strut bar piece a different color.

 

nice does the spray bed liner also deaden the road noise at all?

 

Do u spend a lot of time riding in your trunk?

 

No but if you ever visited the Electronics forum you will know a lot of the sound gurus have determined the trunk area lets a lot of road noise into the cabin, so they dynomat it. This is along the same lines so I am assuming that is why he asked.

Come on now...

 

Can't really tell yet.. Only put about 6 miles on it since I finished it up last night.. (loooong commute to work this morning, lol)

However, 3M Professional Grade, has a rubberized undercoating with OE-sound dampning properties, availble as an over the counter spray can... You can find it anywhere like Schucks, Kragen, Advanced, AutoZone, O'reilly's, Pep Boys, Wal-Mart, you name it... anywhere from $3.99 to as high as $7.59/can from what I've seen.. BUT, the rubberized undercoating, suprisingly scuffs VERY easily and wouldn't really use it in my trunk. I used a couple of test swatches of aluminum to test spray a few different products... I thought the rubberized undercoating would be great with the sound-deadening properties, however, the easy-scuffing and such, just wouldn't fly with me.. being that I STILL use my trunk for thinks.. Oh, and when I say scuffing, it take it down about a half a millimeter, and leaves a dark brown spot, under the black exterior finish. (looks like ass if you scrape it). The rubberized texture is nice, but is actually quite thick.. regardless of the thickness of coats you use to apply. Which leads to the large chunks being removed when a scrape or scratch appears. Yea, it scuffs VERY easily.. Suprising, for it being an "undercoating" for your car, which would regularly see debris on a second-second basis... It's actually a suprisingly soft product after it dries. lol.. Can't win them all I guess.. lol. I do believe however, that the thickness and rubberized material in the spray itself, adds to the sound-deadening properties..

What I found to work best, which is what I used in my trunk, is Dupli-Color spray-in bed liner.. I started with one thin coat as a base.. one medium/heavy coat.. then topped it off with another thin, almost medium coat, to give it a good texture. The good thing about the Dupli-Color bedliner spray, is that if it scuffs (which actually the product dries rock hard, and is very difficult to scratch, and DOES not chip whatsover!!), if it does scuff, it doesn't take much material off.. being that the exterior finish of the product, is extremely hard.. So, when you do get a faded scratch, you give it a quick touch-up pass, and with the spray being a textured finish, it requires absolutely zero blending.. It looks like nothing even happened in that spot, after a touch-up is applied. I think this product is phenomenal for $7.84/can at my local O'Reilly's.

Regardless, answering your question.. I really don't mind the sound-deadening or not having any at all... I'm not too fond of a quite-luxury riding sports car. lol, shoot, I love hearing all the sounds a car makes... exhaust note, revs, hearing the race pads grip at the track, tire rub on hard entries and exits, hearing every rumble strip as I pass over the apex and exit the corner.. So, honestly, for ME, sound-deadening isn't really an issue, let alone a must-have for me. BUT, I'll definitely be sure to let you know if I notice a difference with that or not


Thanks again for the comments guys!

 

What did you use to get all the sound deadening stuff out and get the adhesive off? Mostly that thick foam stuff behind the panels near the spare.

 

Looks great dude!

 

Nice work! What did you use to get the sticky stuff off the fuel tank/fuel pump area after you took the insulation off?

I think it's not warm enough here yet to get that off. I've tried Goo-gone but heat seems to work the best.