I had some reasonable 6" sony splits in my front doors, but they were pretty
bodgily installed and the major problem was rattling and vibration in the door
trims. So I set out to sound deaden the doors as proper as possible, and replace
the splits with some nice Focal 165hs. So here I will describe the process of
installing the speakers along with how I sound deadened the doors. You will need
everything here, which you can source from your local Autobarn or similar.



If you have speakers that are too deep or need to be adjusted to fit properly, you
will also need some 18mm MDF (or appropriate) to make some speaker spacers out
of. Do not use the cheap dodgy plastic speaker spacers, that will only result in
heartache. First, remove the door trims, underneath, in my case, you get to see
the previously dodgy installation. To get the door trim off youll usually find
at least one screw that holds the handle and/or the trim for the door
handle/lever. Youll need to remove them and then pull off the trim. This is
going to be different to a certain extent from car to car.



Firstly, deal with the doors. You want it to be as airtight as possible, so using some
thin sheeted MDF may be appropriate for sealing up some of the gaping holes in
the door. This is definately an optional thing to do and Ill leave the decision
of whether this is worthwhile compared to ventilation and water seapage issues
compared to slightly improved sound from your stereo up to you.



Having it all sealed up makes applying the spray on sound deadener much easier though!
Remember that this stuff is also waterproof and all the rest, so go to town with
it, but prepare your area properly. You don want to ever see evidence of the
sound deadener when the trim goes back on so use LOTS of paper and masking tape
to create an outline.



Spray it all on, and even go inside the door as much as possible, taking care not to
spray it on the window winding mechanisms etc. And you e end result will look
like this. In my case, since it was a black car, the change isn very noticeable,
but imagine if you have a white car and you sprayed this stuff accidentally
elsewhere, horrible! So be careful!



Now you want to do the same sort of procedure to your door trims, but this time do
it much thicker and do it with the paint on sound deadener that comes in a tin.
This stuff is very thick, and it will destroy a paintbrush. So be prepared to
not use the paintbrush for anything else again. Prepare the trims with masking
tape such as below and then go to town..



After applying it all and then removing the masking tape, youll get something similar
to this. Remember it is thick stuff but it spreads well. The directions on the
tin will tell you how thickly to apply it but the thickness is hard to control,
it basically goes on thick and thats what you want anyway.



This is where I had to build some spacers for my speakers to make sure the speakers magnet wasn't in the way of the window winding down :-) ... this is moreso part of my speaker installation that happened while doing the sound deadening, so I won't concentrate on this too much.



Then its time to fasten the speakers into the door with the spacer. Test fit the
speaker to make sure that the window will wind up and down without any problems
before fastening it permanently. Also with the speaker test fitted, test fit the
door trim to see if it sits over the speaker and clips into place. To fasten the
speaker there solidly, you will want to use some long bolts with nuts and
washers. Use two nuts per bolt and do each nut up one at a time, this way it won
rattle loose.



And then you e hopefully done. We haven covered wiring, or location of the tweeter,
crossover, etc, but this will depend on your individual installation (and
whether you have cross overs or tweeters, maybe you just have 2-way speakers!)



Then, with any luck, you can fit the door trim and enjoy your new install! In my case,
the speakers didn clear the door trim adequately and the cone of the speaker
actually hit parts of the door trim when producing certain bass. This problem
was able to be resolved but it was lack of test fitting the door trim that got
me into trouble.. something to keep in mind, test fit everything.

good work Mcloud

man you should write for autospeed or something...
I love reading your how to do's

heheh finally upload it from the old rs aye mcleod...

nice one... i got no idea wen it come sto stereo stuff

LOL... reading through this I was thought this was the WRX the whole time... HAHAHA

QUOTE (Mattson @ Aug 8 2003, 08:50 AM)

LOL... reading through this I was thought this was the WRX the whole time... HAHAHA

I haven't done the sound deadening in the new wrx yet..

haha same, I was about to say. Geez.. can't leave you for two seconds without you doing something to that car of yours.

nice one Mcleod...but it looks like someone spends a bit to much time in the tool shed!!!

if your gunna do something, do it right!!! well done!

which kinda car is taht?!

just pay auto barn to do it!!!

anyone help with boot rattle?? lol

QUOTE (Poida @ Aug 8 2003, 12:40 PM)

which kinda car is taht?!

2002 Subaru RS

QUOTE (BILL BLACK @ Aug 8 2003, 01:07 PM)

just pay auto barn to do it!!!

Yeh that is one way... altho having worked at autobarn, i can tell you the only thing you learn how to do is enter you pin number (or your parrents) into the efpos machine

What Mcleod did tought him a fuckload well i hope so anyway

yeah very neet indeed

would it be difficult to fix the window once soundproof?

very intresting

A much less messy way of doing this is to use self adhesive sound deadening sheets, excellent results too

Looks really good though, top work!!!

its also 2 yr ago too ....

if ya didnt read that bit!!!!!

hey would those sound deadening sheets be more effective then the tar on the floor of your car?

thats great i was acculy gonna spend big bucks buying proper sound deadner, this probly cos half of what one roll of dnyamat costs these days, cheers mate good work

It'll also work half as effective, Dynamat and Stinger Roadkill are the best sound deadening materials you can get, and they're priced accordingly...

^^^

In the scheme of things, if you calculate how much you pay for cheaper material which you have to do 2 or 3 layers of it to be as effective as something like Dynamat Xtreme, then calculate the cost of one layer of Dynamat which does the same job, you'll find they'll be much the same.

Plus Stinger Roadkill Expert and Dynamat Xtreme are extremely easy to apply. Stick like shit to a blanket, and are as flexible as an olympic gymnast. Cheaper brands tend to only have a crappy adhesive backing which doesn't stick very well, and are about as flexible as your 80yr old grandmother, unless you apply some serious heat and manage to mould it within 5 seconds without burning through your leather gloves.

And to the 3 month old post from hull, sound deadening sheets are much more effective than tar. Not as messy, are more heat resistant and generally speaking, thicker than a layer of tar. Dynamat makes products for every part of the car, from the roof to the floor to the bonnet

ROCK ON
R~R

nice job aye, i respect ur work
will the sound deadner also work on road noise an rattles in the acutal door trim?? or jus help improve car aaudio sound?