Sound proof DIY

[Kianbeng]

grease won't disappear, mostly settled at the bottom hence I think you can spray w/o degreasing but im kinda skeptical bout the effectiveness coz the stuff that ur gonna spray doesn't have much mass and low in density....

 

Some of the online reviews on the 3M undercoating spray is very good.....used on undercarriage, wheel wells, and some even used it on the door panels. Thought of buying a few cans to try.

 

Cheaper than Tuff Kote maybe? My previous car with tuff kote has lesser road noise after applying. But $350 or $380 for the first time....subsequent application is $50 but u must do it yearly otherwise its $350 again.

[Cba6p]

Some of the online reviews on the 3M undercoating spray is very good.....used on undercarriage, wheel wells, and some even used it on the door panels. Thought of buying a few cans to try.

 

Cheaper than Tuff Kote maybe? My previous car with tuff kote has lesser road noise after applying. But $350 or $380 for the first time....subsequent application is $50 but u must do it yearly otherwise its $350 again.

 

yeah, if cheap no harm trying but remember deadening and proofing are 2 diff things...

[KaKiLang]

Tuff kote, for a 3yrs old car will be costly to do anti rust, paint armour and sound clad. Just do a sound clad will do. It's effective.

[Picanto]

I tried looking around at those big hardware stores (DIY Stores) I thought they had these 3M undercoating sprays but I couldn't find any. Maybe Autobacs is the only place selling them now.

 

How many cans did you use to get your wheel wells done? I'm thinking of doing this DIY undercarriage or the wheelwells. Or maybe go to Tuff kote, I think I paid $350? on my previous car for Tuff Kote. But they don't open the wheel wells and spray inside though.

 

I don't know how much the 3M undercoating sprays are, but seems like they are $11 USD each, so maybe I guess it's at least $15SGD here. The main issue with DIY for this is that its difficult to do proper undercarriage undercoating without a lift, or at least a stand.

 

those sprays you talked about are not for the DIY. definitely need to lift the car up to do a good job

[Topspin]

Hi,

 

I am going to buy material from china and DIY

 

Hi Stan, sorry to dig up your old post, but are you planning to do any group buys for the dampener soon? If yes, I would like to participate.

 

I have already got a installer to do on my doors and outer wheel well ($$$!!). I think I am ready to DIY my SUV rear quarter panels.

[Geboz]

Hi Stan, sorry to dig up your old post, but are you planning to do any group buys for the dampener soon? If yes, I would like to participate.

 

I have already got a installer to do on my doors and outer wheel well ($$$!!). I think I am ready to DIY my SUV rear quarter panels.

 

hey Topspin, I have some left overs from previous group buy. Should be enough to meet your need. Send me a PM if you are interested. Thanks.

[Kianbeng]

those sprays you talked about are not for the DIY. definitely need to lift the car up to do a good job

 

Ya can't do a good job but I'm thinking of getting a can to do some areas DIY. ie, wheel wells, they should be easy to do once the plastic covers are off. One thing I remembered is that for Tuff Kote, they do not remove the plastic wheel wells, they just spray on it. So for cars without plastic wheel wells, then I think it's good cos the tuff kote is sprayed on metal directly.

 

 

[Kianbeng]

Tuff kote, for a 3yrs old car will be costly to do anti rust, paint armour and sound clad. Just do a sound clad will do. It's effective.

 

How much is the sound clad? I saw some forums mentioning that this is done by pumping some foam into the door panels. I wonder if that's going to be messy.....

[Topspin]

hey Topspin, I have some left overs from previous group buy. Should be enough to meet your need. Send me a PM if you are interested. Thanks.

 

Hi, have PMed you. thanks

[Kianbeng]

Just thought of sharing some updates with fellow bros here on the topic of DIY soundproofing.

 

After some homework, I found that most shops in sg here offers sound deadening, using Aurix, STP, Dynamat, ... they are all heavy weight stuff. And if you google enough, you can find some (overseas) forummers complaining that there's a hum, low freq noise, high pressure feeling after all these soundproofing was done. I don't know exactly what happened but it seems that the sound deadening -> process of converting high freq to low freq is affecting some drivers. It seems to me that optimal soundproofing should consist of sound deadening + sound proofing.

 

Sound deadening effectively converts high freq to low freq which most of the time our ears only pick up audible mid-high freqs. This is probably the type of sound proofing work with greatest noticeable impact.

 

Sound proofing using closed cells foam actually insulates all noise across all (if not most) freq. Basically it lowers your noise floor.

 

Since I wanted to do sound insulation with the least cost + least weight, I opted to do sound proofing using foam. I remembered this topic was also discussed maybe almost 10yrs ago when I did sound proofing for my previous car. The improvement was great and I decided to do the same for my Toyota Fielder.

 

I spent 2 weekends on sound proofing using foams easily bought from many aircon hardware dealers. Last time I used Aerofoam but now I couldn't find it. There's only Armaflex, Insulflex, Superlon, Kaiflex, .... Difference prices, different class rating, some even came with self adhesive. I leave you to do some homework on your own if you decide to follow my path. These are very cheap materials easily sourced from local suppliers. No need to GB or BP from China.

 

But I also did some sound deadening using Everseal. I know some of the bros here might laugh at this because this is a cork tape used for aircon installation. But I realised it serves the same purpose. It's bituminous and also adds mass to metal. Some told me that it will melt if it's too hot. I'm not sure if there are other similar tapes that melt but this everseal is rated up to like 95 degrees. And when it's exceeded it allegedly hardens, not melt. Of course I did not tape up every where in the car, otherwise it's going to be heavy as well. I only used it on areas where the metal is very thin/empty. After pasting on it, try knocking again and you will see the vibration sounds more solid. During one of my recent overseas trip, I also saw similar aircon tape but it has aluminium backing and bought 1 back for use. It's called V Tech Bituminous Flashing Tape. But I haven't been able to find this in sg. It's quite sticky but seems to be thinner than Everseal.

 

What I also want to share is the results of my soundproofing work

1) Completed roof, flooring, front 2 doors. The results was quite good as I do not hear so much of the road roar. I'm still waiting for heavy rain to see if the roof insulation was effective. It's not perfect but I am sure there is a difference before/after.

 

2) Remaining work:

- I still need to dismantle my 4 wheel wells (plastic cover) so that I can spray undercoating on the metal (hopefully this weekend) and will also use PU Foam on some of the void spaces between the plastic and the metal chassis.

- Rear 2 doors not done yet.

- Still undecided on the bonnet insulation

 

3) In the midst of doing the flooring, I broke some clips and now some of the plastic fittings no longer clip properly and also some area is now bulging out as I used the wrong thickness of foam - trial and error. But then again, if you pass your car to an audio shop, you also cannot get them to guarantee you that no clips will be broken. As I'm driving a uncommon car, most of the audio shops I've been to, also quoted their great experiences - but with other car models.

 

I planned all these DIY slowly over a few weekends because I don't have so much time on hand and also I want to know what is the effect of each individual piece of insulation. So far, for road noise, the greatest impact was the flooring insulation.

 

I wish you guys good luck.

[Rantwb]

Hi KB,

Thanks for your update. Agree with you that most sound-proofing done in SG refers to sound deadening. Usually with Bitumen sheets. These reduces the chassis vibration so that it reduces the overall noise emitted into the cabin.

 

My internet trawling has showed me other materials like mass loaded vinyl (relying on mass to block transmission of sound) and closed cell vinyl nitrile foam (decoupler)

 

This is one good website for reading up: http://www.sounddeadenershowdown.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi

[Kianbeng]

Are these mass loaded vinyl available in sg? I read about them too - they serve the same purpose of adding mass. But I went to the website, their closed cell foams aren't cheap.....

[Suv8]

Just thought of sharing some updates with fellow bros here on the topic of DIY soundproofing.

 

After some homework, I found that most shops in sg here offers sound deadening, using Aurix, STP, Dynamat, ... they are all heavy weight stuff. And if you google enough, you can find some (overseas) forummers complaining that there's a hum, low freq noise, high pressure feeling after all these soundproofing was done. I don't know exactly what happened but it seems that the sound deadening -> process of converting high freq to low freq is affecting some drivers. It seems to me that optimal soundproofing should consist of sound deadening + sound proofing.

 

Sound deadening effectively converts high freq to low freq which most of the time our ears only pick up audible mid-high freqs. This is probably the type of sound proofing work with greatest noticeable impact.

 

Sound proofing using closed cells foam actually insulates all noise across all (if not most) freq. Basically it lowers your noise floor.

 

Since I wanted to do sound insulation with the least cost + least weight, I opted to do sound proofing using foam. I remembered this topic was also discussed maybe almost 10yrs ago when I did sound proofing for my previous car. The improvement was great and I decided to do the same for my Toyota Fielder.

 

I spent 2 weekends on sound proofing using foams easily bought from many aircon hardware dealers. Last time I used Aerofoam but now I couldn't find it. There's only Armaflex, Insulflex, Superlon, Kaiflex, .... Difference prices, different class rating, some even came with self adhesive. I leave you to do some homework on your own if you decide to follow my path. These are very cheap materials easily sourced from local suppliers. No need to GB or BP from China.

 

But I also did some sound deadening using Everseal. I know some of the bros here might laugh at this because this is a cork tape used for aircon installation. But I realised it serves the same purpose. It's bituminous and also adds mass to metal. Some told me that it will melt if it's too hot. I'm not sure if there are other similar tapes that melt but this everseal is rated up to like 95 degrees. And when it's exceeded it allegedly hardens, not melt. Of course I did not tape up every where in the car, otherwise it's going to be heavy as well. I only used it on areas where the metal is very thin/empty. After pasting on it, try knocking again and you will see the vibration sounds more solid. During one of my recent overseas trip, I also saw similar aircon tape but it has aluminium backing and bought 1 back for use. It's called V Tech Bituminous Flashing Tape. But I haven't been able to find this in sg. It's quite sticky but seems to be thinner than Everseal.

 

What I also want to share is the results of my soundproofing work

1) Completed roof, flooring, front 2 doors. The results was quite good as I do not hear so much of the road roar. I'm still waiting for heavy rain to see if the roof insulation was effective. It's not perfect but I am sure there is a difference before/after.

 

2) Remaining work:

- I still need to dismantle my 4 wheel wells (plastic cover) so that I can spray undercoating on the metal (hopefully this weekend) and will also use PU Foam on some of the void spaces between the plastic and the metal chassis.

- Rear 2 doors not done yet.

- Still undecided on the bonnet insulation

 

3) In the midst of doing the flooring, I broke some clips and now some of the plastic fittings no longer clip properly and also some area is now bulging out as I used the wrong thickness of foam - trial and error. But then again, if you pass your car to an audio shop, you also cannot get them to guarantee you that no clips will be broken. As I'm driving a uncommon car, most of the audio shops I've been to, also quoted their great experiences - but with other car models.

 

I planned all these DIY slowly over a few weekends because I don't have so much time on hand and also I want to know what is the effect of each individual piece of insulation. So far, for road noise, the greatest impact was the flooring insulation.

 

I wish you guys good luck.

 

 

Hi Kianbeng, may i ask where you buy your Armaflex, Superlon etc, especially those with adhesive backing? thanks!

[Kianbeng]

I did not buy those with Self Adhesive. There are only a few shops out there selling the same thing.....

[Sigcomms]

Hi KB, may i know if closed cell rubber foam sheet from those shops selling rubber product can be used and have the same effect? I was thinking of putting it on the door panel to improve sound acoustic.

[MG_Myvi]

Hi KB, may i know if closed cell rubber foam sheet from those shops selling rubber product can be used and have the same effect? I was thinking of putting it on the door panel to improve sound acoustic.

 

Definitely will improve abit.

[Picanto]

Hi KB, may i know if closed cell rubber foam sheet from those shops selling rubber product can be used and have the same effect? I was thinking of putting it on the door panel to improve sound acoustic.

 

why not try ebay?

[Kianbeng]

Definitely will improve abit.

 

Yes I think definitely will improve. Especially the low end (bass).

 

Before soundproofing the door panels with closed cell foam, I just feel my car audio is like music in a noisy place. Now the noise floor is lower.

 

If you are interested to hear the before/after - easy. Just go to Autobacs, they have a demo ripped out door with the same speakers, connected to 1 HU. The one on the left is soundproofed using their STP mats. Very solid. The right door is without any soundproofing which is almost exactly like my car's - even though when I was doing the sound proofing, I realised the original doors already had some bitumen sheets on them but maybe just 1x1ft big. My motivation to do my sound proofing was because the right door of the demo unit in Autobacs was exactly what I was hearing in my car. Music in a noisy place.