Install tips for Dynamatters
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Joined: Feb 2007
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From: Kirkland, WA
Install tips for Dynamatters
I've almost completed an S2k soundproofing job, and wanted to share tips from installation. These are things I wish I was told before I started. Lots of learning on the way has made it much easier. In no particular order...
* Have you considered RAAMMat BXT instead of Dynamat Extreme? RAAMMat is raved about at EliteCarAudio; it's cheaper than Dynamat; the customer service is superb and personal; and really, it compares very favorably. Read the shootout here: http://www.sounddeadenershowdown.com/
* Has anyone told you that DynaMat/RAAMMat/B-Quiet/Damplifier are quite messy to install? No one warned me about that. Imagine a sheet of aluminum foil coated with some of the stickiest tar on earth -- that's what this stuff is. Forget all the ads about how you can install it in 10 minutes. This stuff will stick to your hands. To your paint (a pain to remove, by the way). To trim. To your dog (and hurt him incredibly much to tear out, mind you). It's messy.
* Consider using gloves. By a box of Costco disposable latex food-handling gloves. You'll need about 30 pairs (not a typo, not an exaggeration) to do a full s2k install. As soon as the gloves get too much tar on them, exchange them for fresh ones. If you want to be really clever, lotion your gloves whenever you put a new pair on -- the tar won't stick to that. (Remember, however, that the lotion will stay on the foil and make it hard to attach closed-cell foam).
* If you're not using gloves, consider buying some GoJo. The Orange Pumice automotive hand cleaner is pretty sweet, complete with ER-surgeon-style scrubber brush. Feel like Anthony Edwards and smell like Florida all at the same time: http://automotive.gojo.com/products/....asp?cat_id=20. Highly recommended.
* Use small pieces. Sure, the floorpan is 51" x 26", so you're tempted to lay 8 sq. ft. at once. Don't do it. The tar will get everywhere, and your girlfriend will leave you for a man without black smears all over his Rio. Instead, use 1'x1' pieces if it's flat and easy (like the passenger floorpan), or brick-sized pieces (8"x4") if it's tricky (like the area over the fuel tank).
* Use small pieces. (Just kidding -- it's important, but I don't mean to be flippant). Here's an additional application tip that saved me tons of headache: when applying a piece of mat, peel only a corner or a 2" edge of the wax-paper backing. Don't peel all the backing off at once. Then stick the peeled corner's tar after aligning your piece. Once the corner or edge is stuck where you want it, reach behind the piece and peel off the rest of the backing. That way, you incrementally apply the backing (and keep your girlfriend).
* If you'd like to remove the carpet, use the right tool. I can't stress this enough. The "right tool" is not a screwdriver. I used -- I am not making this up -- a weed puller, which is essentially a two-pronged fork. It's also much cheaper than any sort of fancy automotive carpet-pulling kit. Once I discovered the weed puller, pulling carpet from under the seats and pulling trim from the trunk became a breeze. I was almost wishing for more clips, it was so easy.
* By the way, if you're intimidated about pulling the carpet, don't be. I was pretty scared. It was easy. Be patient, look for hard-to-see clips instead of just tugging hard. And oh: the big white fastener at the front end of the carpet, listed in the Helms service manual as a "clip", is actually a screw. Yeah, don't pull on it. Unscrew it.
* When doing the inside of the doors (and by "inside," I mean "the part of the door between your window and the sweet Montana air"), first roll up your windows. Sounds easy, but remember that once the door skin is off, the only way to operate the windows is to re-attach the door skin's wire harness. Do yourself a favor and roll the windows up before you remove the door skin. (And for those of you who think you're just as clever as I thought I was, the driver's side window switch does not operate the passenger side window when the passenger door skin is off).
* The inside of the doors gets incredibly wet in the rain, even with the windows rolled up. Take it from a man who lives in Seattle. So realize this if you decide to install anything in the door cavity: it will get wet if you ever drive in the rain (or if, say, the sprinklers at your workplace's parking garage go off mysteriously in the middle of the day and leave rusty orange water all over your new car; not that I'm speaking from experience). So if you install The Black Tar That Is Dynamat, some will drip out through the bottom of the door onto your paint (there are many slits at the bottom of the door to let the water out). Not a lot of blackness, but some will happen. And don't expect spray adhesive to hold up well under that much water, unless you've got your hands on some marine-grade material.
* If you apply foam on top of your mat underneath the door skin, leave the metal rails that lead away from your door latch and your door lock alone -- don't cover them. Sure, covering them will cover that worrisome gaping hole in the cavity, but it'll also slow (or even stop) your automatic lock from working. Adds too much friction to the metal rods. I regret not figuring this out until putting the door skin back on.
* If you plan to do the inside of your cavity, remove the white plastic sheet carefully, and don't wipe away its caulking. The caulking is very carefully beaded on the door to direct water to exit holes cut in the door's metal; if you change where the caulking is, or if you don't replace all of it, water will run to the wrong places when it rains, and potentially get trapped in your door. Presumably, bad smells, mold/mildew, and the proverbial loss of girlfriend may ensue. Well, the loss of girlfriend may ensue regardless, but don't say I didn't warn you.
* Don't expect miracles with your soundproofing. I've matted the entire bottom of the trunk/sparetireplace/fueltank as well as the passenger door, passenger floorpan, and transmission tunnel. I've also put a layer (or two) of closed-cell foam (I used RAAMAudio's Ensolite) on all those spots. So far, I'm sad to say that it hasn't really made that much of a difference to road noise (if honestly any). I know this is controversial and all, and that many people will swear up and down that it's made their car a Lexus, that they need to talk to themselves while driving on the highway just to prevent it from feeling like a sensory deprivation chamber, but I'm sorry to say that I can't tell a difference. Given forum claims that a sound-treated door will "close like a Mercedes," I went ahead and did a semi-objective (read: with help of wife and friends) test. My passenger door is completely treated, while my driver door is completely stock. I challenge anyone in the Seattle area to a Door Close-a-thon at my place; you cannot tell the difference between the two doors when they close. If you can, I will personally buy you a coffee. I'm not proud to say this, especially since I paid ~$200 in materials and 20 hours in labor, but I'm calling it like it is. I'll reserve final judgment for when the car is completely treated and all the carpet/trim is put back, but these are the preliminary results.
* On a related note, don't expect the metal to "thud." I've read posts where people say that an untreated s2k's metal panels ring when struck with the knuckles, and that they "thud" like the skull of a monastically-vowed speechless hippie when struck with same aforementioned knuckles, but it's simply not true. Well, it's true that an untreated s2k's panels ring when struck. But when you've fully treated the metal with Dynamatalicious Deluxe SuperStopper and two layers of Patented Space Technology Memory Foam Designed By NASA And Worn By Jessica Simpson Herself, it'll just sound like metal with 3/8" of Stuff™ on it. Seriously -- like if you wrapped an empty oil barrel discarded by Stomp with a thin layer of bubble wrap and struck it with a baseball bat. That's exactly the sound. You can't expect 3/8" of ANY material to stop sound stone-cold. It improves it marginally, but it's not going to rock your world.
* Total materials needed. Let's talk about this for a bit, because it was a wee bit of guesswork for me before starting. Here are some facts. Assume you want to cover the following areas with one layer of mat: under door skins, inside door cavities, under seats, behind seats, tranny tunnel, spare tire area, fuel tank area, entire bottom of trunk, and back half of rear wheel wells. This much coverage will require ~60 sq. ft. of material (= 1 roll of RAAMMat). And I don't waste much: cut pieces are recycled into corners, crevices, and the ears of neighborhood golden retrievers. If you need to use less material, I'd suggest omitting the area inside door cavities (completely unscientifically, and completely without real data); leave your well-caulked factory white plastic rain cover in place, and keep your hands cut-free.
Good luck. I don't want to discourage you -- in fact, I'm enjoying my install and look forward to bragging rights about how difficult it was. I hope these tips help, and that I'm also to give you a more realistic expectation of the results.
Your mileage may vary. Batteries not included. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results.
* Have you considered RAAMMat BXT instead of Dynamat Extreme? RAAMMat is raved about at EliteCarAudio; it's cheaper than Dynamat; the customer service is superb and personal; and really, it compares very favorably. Read the shootout here: http://www.sounddeadenershowdown.com/
* Has anyone told you that DynaMat/RAAMMat/B-Quiet/Damplifier are quite messy to install? No one warned me about that. Imagine a sheet of aluminum foil coated with some of the stickiest tar on earth -- that's what this stuff is. Forget all the ads about how you can install it in 10 minutes. This stuff will stick to your hands. To your paint (a pain to remove, by the way). To trim. To your dog (and hurt him incredibly much to tear out, mind you). It's messy.
* Consider using gloves. By a box of Costco disposable latex food-handling gloves. You'll need about 30 pairs (not a typo, not an exaggeration) to do a full s2k install. As soon as the gloves get too much tar on them, exchange them for fresh ones. If you want to be really clever, lotion your gloves whenever you put a new pair on -- the tar won't stick to that. (Remember, however, that the lotion will stay on the foil and make it hard to attach closed-cell foam).
* If you're not using gloves, consider buying some GoJo. The Orange Pumice automotive hand cleaner is pretty sweet, complete with ER-surgeon-style scrubber brush. Feel like Anthony Edwards and smell like Florida all at the same time: http://automotive.gojo.com/products/....asp?cat_id=20. Highly recommended.
* Use small pieces. Sure, the floorpan is 51" x 26", so you're tempted to lay 8 sq. ft. at once. Don't do it. The tar will get everywhere, and your girlfriend will leave you for a man without black smears all over his Rio. Instead, use 1'x1' pieces if it's flat and easy (like the passenger floorpan), or brick-sized pieces (8"x4") if it's tricky (like the area over the fuel tank).
* Use small pieces. (Just kidding -- it's important, but I don't mean to be flippant). Here's an additional application tip that saved me tons of headache: when applying a piece of mat, peel only a corner or a 2" edge of the wax-paper backing. Don't peel all the backing off at once. Then stick the peeled corner's tar after aligning your piece. Once the corner or edge is stuck where you want it, reach behind the piece and peel off the rest of the backing. That way, you incrementally apply the backing (and keep your girlfriend).
* If you'd like to remove the carpet, use the right tool. I can't stress this enough. The "right tool" is not a screwdriver. I used -- I am not making this up -- a weed puller, which is essentially a two-pronged fork. It's also much cheaper than any sort of fancy automotive carpet-pulling kit. Once I discovered the weed puller, pulling carpet from under the seats and pulling trim from the trunk became a breeze. I was almost wishing for more clips, it was so easy.
* By the way, if you're intimidated about pulling the carpet, don't be. I was pretty scared. It was easy. Be patient, look for hard-to-see clips instead of just tugging hard. And oh: the big white fastener at the front end of the carpet, listed in the Helms service manual as a "clip", is actually a screw. Yeah, don't pull on it. Unscrew it.
* When doing the inside of the doors (and by "inside," I mean "the part of the door between your window and the sweet Montana air"), first roll up your windows. Sounds easy, but remember that once the door skin is off, the only way to operate the windows is to re-attach the door skin's wire harness. Do yourself a favor and roll the windows up before you remove the door skin. (And for those of you who think you're just as clever as I thought I was, the driver's side window switch does not operate the passenger side window when the passenger door skin is off).
* The inside of the doors gets incredibly wet in the rain, even with the windows rolled up. Take it from a man who lives in Seattle. So realize this if you decide to install anything in the door cavity: it will get wet if you ever drive in the rain (or if, say, the sprinklers at your workplace's parking garage go off mysteriously in the middle of the day and leave rusty orange water all over your new car; not that I'm speaking from experience). So if you install The Black Tar That Is Dynamat, some will drip out through the bottom of the door onto your paint (there are many slits at the bottom of the door to let the water out). Not a lot of blackness, but some will happen. And don't expect spray adhesive to hold up well under that much water, unless you've got your hands on some marine-grade material.
* If you apply foam on top of your mat underneath the door skin, leave the metal rails that lead away from your door latch and your door lock alone -- don't cover them. Sure, covering them will cover that worrisome gaping hole in the cavity, but it'll also slow (or even stop) your automatic lock from working. Adds too much friction to the metal rods. I regret not figuring this out until putting the door skin back on.
* If you plan to do the inside of your cavity, remove the white plastic sheet carefully, and don't wipe away its caulking. The caulking is very carefully beaded on the door to direct water to exit holes cut in the door's metal; if you change where the caulking is, or if you don't replace all of it, water will run to the wrong places when it rains, and potentially get trapped in your door. Presumably, bad smells, mold/mildew, and the proverbial loss of girlfriend may ensue. Well, the loss of girlfriend may ensue regardless, but don't say I didn't warn you.
* Don't expect miracles with your soundproofing. I've matted the entire bottom of the trunk/sparetireplace/fueltank as well as the passenger door, passenger floorpan, and transmission tunnel. I've also put a layer (or two) of closed-cell foam (I used RAAMAudio's Ensolite) on all those spots. So far, I'm sad to say that it hasn't really made that much of a difference to road noise (if honestly any). I know this is controversial and all, and that many people will swear up and down that it's made their car a Lexus, that they need to talk to themselves while driving on the highway just to prevent it from feeling like a sensory deprivation chamber, but I'm sorry to say that I can't tell a difference. Given forum claims that a sound-treated door will "close like a Mercedes," I went ahead and did a semi-objective (read: with help of wife and friends) test. My passenger door is completely treated, while my driver door is completely stock. I challenge anyone in the Seattle area to a Door Close-a-thon at my place; you cannot tell the difference between the two doors when they close. If you can, I will personally buy you a coffee. I'm not proud to say this, especially since I paid ~$200 in materials and 20 hours in labor, but I'm calling it like it is. I'll reserve final judgment for when the car is completely treated and all the carpet/trim is put back, but these are the preliminary results.
* On a related note, don't expect the metal to "thud." I've read posts where people say that an untreated s2k's metal panels ring when struck with the knuckles, and that they "thud" like the skull of a monastically-vowed speechless hippie when struck with same aforementioned knuckles, but it's simply not true. Well, it's true that an untreated s2k's panels ring when struck. But when you've fully treated the metal with Dynamatalicious Deluxe SuperStopper and two layers of Patented Space Technology Memory Foam Designed By NASA And Worn By Jessica Simpson Herself, it'll just sound like metal with 3/8" of Stuff™ on it. Seriously -- like if you wrapped an empty oil barrel discarded by Stomp with a thin layer of bubble wrap and struck it with a baseball bat. That's exactly the sound. You can't expect 3/8" of ANY material to stop sound stone-cold. It improves it marginally, but it's not going to rock your world.
* Total materials needed. Let's talk about this for a bit, because it was a wee bit of guesswork for me before starting. Here are some facts. Assume you want to cover the following areas with one layer of mat: under door skins, inside door cavities, under seats, behind seats, tranny tunnel, spare tire area, fuel tank area, entire bottom of trunk, and back half of rear wheel wells. This much coverage will require ~60 sq. ft. of material (= 1 roll of RAAMMat). And I don't waste much: cut pieces are recycled into corners, crevices, and the ears of neighborhood golden retrievers. If you need to use less material, I'd suggest omitting the area inside door cavities (completely unscientifically, and completely without real data); leave your well-caulked factory white plastic rain cover in place, and keep your hands cut-free.
Good luck. I don't want to discourage you -- in fact, I'm enjoying my install and look forward to bragging rights about how difficult it was. I hope these tips help, and that I'm also to give you a more realistic expectation of the results.
Your mileage may vary. Batteries not included. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results.
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Originally Posted by FiveCar' date='Mar 22 2007, 07:44 PM
Does "off the ledge" mean that you're now ready to do it, or that you've decided not to do it? The matting is not hard -- you just need to be mentally prepared. I want to make sure people don't go into it with too high of expectations, but overall, I'm enjoying the install.
Go RAAMMat. It's cheaper and it's great stuff.
Go RAAMMat. It's cheaper and it's great stuff.
Five car, you didnt notice a difference with the ensolite?
what areas of the car did you deaden?
Thread Starter
Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 41
Likes: 0
From: Kirkland, WA
[quote name='SebringDemon' date='Mar 23 2007, 06:21 AM']not only is it cheaper, but Rick the owner is one of the nicest guys i know and his customer service is top notch.
Five car, you didnt notice a difference with the ensolite?
Five car, you didnt notice a difference with the ensolite?
