Advice about sound deadening

[zdkaiser]

I was thinking about doing some sound deadening to my Vibe, but I need some advice.First off, I was thinking about using the Fatmat product. Anyone, have any experience with the product/company? They offer 100sq ft for $129 with free shipping and the roller tool. So, it turns out to be a little more than $1 per sq foot. Which seems okay to me.Also, I was planning on just lining my doors with it. Is 100sq feet enough for the four doors?I basically want to improve the sound quality from my stereo and reduce some road/tire noise. I was thinking of lining the metal door frames and also the back of the plastic door panels with the Fatmat. Do I need to remove the plastic covering that covers the metal door frame? I would rather not mess around with it and not have to deal with that black resin/glue (from hell). Can I just put the Fatmat over that plastic cover? Or will this cause some sagging?Any suggestions about the proper installation procedure would be great. Some say cut in small pieces to make it more manageable. Let me know if anyone knows of any better deals out there for sound deadening products. And no, I don't really want to go with any Lowes/Home Depot roofing supplies (I am willing to pay a little extra). One more thing, should I line the deadening material all the way up to the speaker? I mean, surround the actual speaker cone with it? What about inside the door? I would prefer to not remove the speakers I just installed (and I imagine it is a pain in *** to stick that material on in the door frame). But I guess, you get what you put into it.

[audiovibe]

When I did my Vibe I used 125 sqft of RaamMat BXT, I currently have another 125ft2 to go in the car. I currently have about 70-75 ft2 in the doors but I will be adding another layer to the exterior skin. The exterior skin currently has I believe 3 layers in most areas and 4 layers behind the speaker. the interior skin has 2 layers on it currently. So yes you can get by doing 100' in the doors alone.If you are just wanting to make the car quieter you should really consider doing the floor, roof, and wheel wells as you will benefit greater from those areas, but you said you wanted to improve SQ. I personally would look into doing the whole car to gain the most benefit.You would need to remove the factory vapor barrier (The white plastic) to install the mat. Surprisingly the front doors are not that bad to do the outer skins, it is the rear doors that are a PITA. You will also need to cover the holes in the doors with some type of rigid material so when you use the mat you in that spot it has a solid foundation, (I used some 18ga perforated mesh I got from my father in laws machine shop).I also cut my deadener into strips to install. I wanted to try that method to see about ease of installation. It was alot easier to install and I feel there were greater benefits as in strength where I overlapped every strip. The down side is that you will use more mat.Just kindqa my .02 on the topic, if you want to see how I did my deadner here is a link to my build loghttp://forums.genvibe.com/zerothread?id=37070AronAlso forgot I don't have any experience with Fatmat so I can't comment.

[Sublimewind]

What Aron said, except to the average Joe, you don't need NEARLY that much.. Him and I both have gone "all out" on our cars.. A single layer of anything would be sufficient for you... I would say... Sealing the holes in the doors helps the speakers really shine, but again, it's not 100% needed... The more you do, the better it will be... AFA HOW to install, I used strips in tight spots... when it wasn't tight, I used larger sheets.. I like strips though, it's easy to maneuver them into place and then you don't have a sheet flopping around.. Cleaning is paramount... you need a clean oil free surface, I used a few bottles of 99% IPA (Rubbing Alcohol) but i've used carb cleaner in the past... Obviously, you want to do this outside... I can't tell you HOW many times the IPA made me gag, as I was covering large areas and inhaling large quantities and I was outside... lol.. a fan might be in order...