slick099

but what has anyone used on the strut bar specifically?

dannichols

There's a company on E-bay that sells Dynamat but you will notice their ads suggest you actually buy another product instead. I noticed this company has different types of matting specifically for different problem areas,. Putting a thick matting under the pastic there is overkill and may prevent the pieces from snapping back on uniformly. I used a thinner type foamy material I found at Lowes.

slick099

Does the foam have a name?

dannichols

The box says, "foamy stuff for use on 350Z strut bars"

just kidding, I will have to look at my next Lowe's journey but it is basically a vushy double-sided tape. You may want to check Cascadeaudio.com or one of the thinner materials designed specifically for the job like dynaliner or tacmat.

Mecha

haha nice.
So i am going to have a 10" sub with a Max of 200 RMS watts to it - do you think I'll be rattling like hell? I have NO idea where or how to use dynamat, so tell me if its something I need to get for sure or for not.

dannichols

I can only tell you what happened to me personally. I tried 2 different 10" subs under the strut bar in a fiberglass enclosure. One was a mid-grade 200W and the other was a higher-end Alpine 300W RMS. The latter produced a lot of rattle especially in the upper hatch area, around the glass and trunk closure, and around all plastic panels on the interior. It also caused quite a rattle in the inner depths of the rear bumper. The rattle was most apparent from the outside back of the car, but it got on my nerves on the inside too.. unless I cranked up the volume to compensate.
To help alleviate this, I ripped out all of the panels in the rear and those plastic pieces attached to the hatch. I used a lot of small pieces of dynamat and quite a bit of the thinner foam I mentioned. I had already dynamatted my car prior to this but I took extra care this time to really do a good job in the tire well, around the wheel wells, and just about everywhere else back there. End result..well it was a lot better than it was, probably half the rattle I would say..but it still annoyed me big time and the bass SQ and level wasn't quite up to what I needed. I sold both subs and 2 sub enclosures and built my own in the tire well. now I am happy and can concentrate on getting better 6.5's than these horrible Rockford Fosgates.

dannichols

If you do end up tearing apart the paneling and strut bar, I would concentrate on adding the material to spots where plastic makes contact with metal. The strut bar is rather difficult to take apart and put back together, sort of like a jigsaw puzzle. You will see what I am talking about once you are down to bare metal though. I think it also helped to put some material over the holes where panels clip or fastened onto the metal and just push the panel fastener through the material. You may want to install the sub first, try to track down buzzes and rattle origins, and then take apart and reassemble..good luck!

maxipad96

iTrader: (5)

I hate rattles.. my Z is a symphany of rattles and i dont even have a sub. The two front security light ratlles are driving me nuts! Along w/ the rear view mirrior, seat creaking, rear strut bar rattle, shifter rattle and excessive road noise i am going crazy.

dannichols

Nice rims! I hear ya..Dynamat everywhere helped a lot as did undercoat in wheel wells, but everytime I get on the freeway I wish for a quiter ride. As far as rattles go though, mine is pretty free of them and I have a 12" sub. Dynamat seemed to help there.

350G

iTrader: (4)

Another thing to keep in mind is that once you take apart the interior plastic paneling, those clips will not be good as new. Buy an excess amount of those clips and reinstall them once you completely dynamat & / or foam the interior. The panels will fit snug and, as mentioned above, if you use the dynamat and cover the holes, then your clips will fit really snug . . .

welowe

I am wanting to sound dampen my Z early next year and had a few questions...

How much of the dash did you take off and dynamat behind?

So, to do the outside fender wells, you have to take the wheel and plastic coverings off?

Any possibility of getting pics of the dash and fender areas with all the stuff removed?

Where do you buy the clips from, and how many are needed?

I think I am going to order the FatMat matting and liquid stuff.

Thanks for your help.

One thing, I was getting overly frustrated about road noise about a month ago, but then I bought some new tires and the road noise went away. I was suprised at how much vibration will come from an old set of tires. I had new fronts from the feathering TSB, but my backs were sitting at 27K miles.

-Wayne

ezee

I didn't put any behind the dash, don't think it will help much with road noise.
I didn't take remove anything from the wheel wells before applying liquid fatmat, but I did cover the threaded bolt ends and plastic clips with masking tape. I applied the stuff over the plastic coverings making sure to not cover any air openings.
Clips can be purchased from the dealer, or you can save a few bucks and get similar clips from your local auto parts store.

All high-performance tires will make more noise as they wear so the noise will come back, you'll be much happier with the interior noise level after you've applied some sound dampener to your Z.

dannichols

The only parts of the dash I attempted to dampen were in the middle area behind the gauge cluster, radio console, and shift column, since I had taken all that out to do the stereo install. I think you will have a tough time accessing other parts of the dash and it may not be worth it.. I'm not even sure if a thick matting or liquid would work on the type of rattles that come from the dash, they seem to be in the steering column for me, spots where plastic meets plastic.

My sound proofing/damping started below the dash and went all the way back. Be careful with panels, it's very easy to break fasteners (use a plastic putty knife with a notch cut in it), buyt what is worse is some of the fasteners are part of the panel themselve, so if you break it there is no fix besides a new panel or maybe epoxy. Fatmat or Dynamat over the fastener holes makes the panels a bit harder to get back on, but they fit more snuggly. My Dynamat install wasn't just taking big pieces and trying to cover everything in site, I had to cut th stuff into smaller manageable pieces and I tried not to cover anything that wasn't base metal. If I take off the panels, you will see what looks like a jigsaw puzzle of dynamat.

For the wells, I took out every piece of plastic and spray coated them from behind. With them out I newspaper and taped the spring/strut area, wheel, and anything else that shouldn't be covered with goop. Then I sprayed the stuff on. It came out really nice and looks stock..but the spray goes on very thin so you will likely need to do 5 or so coats..or forget that and just use a brush on thicker coating.

I am happy with the dynamat, my car has absolutely no rattles from inside, and the stereo sounds much better..kind of like the difference between mounting a speaker to a thin tin enclosure or mounting it to a proper MDF enclosure. I also got a substancial decrease in road noise, specially from the tires..but from what I've been reading I don't think Dynamat, Fatmat, or any other mat alone is the ultimate sound deadening solution. Seems an additional layer of open/close cell foam plus rubber barrier does wonders..I may try that too on the interior floor and interior areas around front and rear wheel wells.

350G

iTrader: (4)

Just keep in mind fellas, that there's a fundamental difference between the "dynamats" of the world and acoustical deadening foam (similar to egg crate foam). You could "dynamat" your vehicle all day long and still have massive road noise since the material is merely designed to absorb vibrations, not noise. The foam, on the other hand, slows the sound waves and decreases the amount of audible noise.

dannichols

True, that's why I am considering adding a layer of sound proofing. But one must consider the foam already stock in the floor and the fact we have carpet and thick thick floor mats and trunk mats.

dannichols

And let's not downplay the fact that absorbing vibration is a very critical function, especially with 600W of bass.

350G

iTrader: (4)

True, true. In my SPL days, I had an S-10 with a "shell." I cut between the cab and the bed, booted the structure, and dynamatted the hell out of it (no less than 2 layers). Needless to say, I had no vibrations even with 9 12" JL W6s (W7 wasn't out back then--1995), but still quite a bit of road noise. After applying some high density foam, that reduced the noise dramatically. The only thing I lost by going this route . . . was my hearing

Nothing gets the adrenaline pumping like some chest pounding bass (and, of course, BOVs), but nothing is more frustrating than having everyone repeat themselves . . .

Mecha

X_x

dannichols

He he..my ears are still ringing from last night's jams!

Anyway, I think a lot of members like me who have gone the Matting route would love to find an inexpensive low weight sound barrier to throw on top of it. Problem is, I don't see a lot of people trying anything or reporting positive results. I mean, everyone seems to either go the Dynamat, Fatmat, whatever-mat route OR they go with some sort of brush on compound, or a combination of those approaches. Well there are a lot of people out there I'm sure who are happy with the vibration (rattle) dampening they get with their matting but who want to get more sound deadening. And who also don't feel like stripping out all of the matting to replace it or add a ton of more weight.

So, has anyone had luck with the thinner foam barriers? I've seen these products on the websites like Dynaliner, Tacmat, etc. Does this stuff do the trick. What is a thin open/close cell barrier that will reduce sound from outside and is easy to install and light weight????????????