Dynamat Xtreme

    Well as their website says:    

"Stop fighting engine rumble, speaker rattle, road noise and buzzing vehicle parts! Apply Dynamat Xtreme to your vehicle's resonant surfaces and enjoy improved clarity, loudness and bass response from your car stereo. High-performance Dynamat Xtreme is lighter than Dynamat Original, four times more effective, requires no heat to apply and is recommended for vehicle tops, sides and contoured areas. Dynamat Xtreme is coated with aluminum for high temperature areas such as firewalls and floors. Depending on your needs, choose Dynamat Xtreme in either application-specific kits (pre-cut material in appropriately-sized pieces) or in sheets you can cut to fit."  --- www.dynamat.com

    Basically I was getting sick of all the road noise and I was looking for a way to somehow cut it down.  I at least wanted to be able to carry on a conversation on the freeway, is that to much to ask?  I also had water coming through the front left and right door panels so I knew the plastic sheet behind them was going to have to be replaced.  I want to take off the door panels as few times as possible, so I might as well install the Dynamat while they're off.  Heck, while I'm at it I should do it right and pull out the interior and Dynamat the floor too.  Easier said than done.

    Dynamat Xtreme is not cheap.  The retail is $249 for 32 square feet but I was able to find it on Ebay for $107.  I ended up using 48 sq.ft., so I had to buy two boxes.  Another drawback is the weight,  48 sq. ft. weighs 30 pounds.  That's a lot of poundage to be hauling around, but I think I can live with it.  I have horsepower to spare, sort of.

    On the plus side, with the whole thing finished, the car is a lot quieter now.  The doors close with a solid thud, the speakers hit harder with more bass and I'm able to turn them up louder before they start distorting.  Interior noise on the freeway isn't up to Lexus standards but it is greatly improved.

Installation

    The more I got to thinking, I realized I wanted to cover the floor, all four doors, the truck and the rear speaker shelf with this stuff so that meant the whole interior was going to have to come out.  It was a sunny Friday so I might as well jump right in. I first started with the rear seat.  There are two hooks underneath it so all you have to do is push the whole seat cushion rearward while lifting it up at the same time.  Underneath that metal plate is the location of the fuel pump if you ever need to get at it.

    The next thing I did was remove the base molding form each door opening.  It's a good idea to lay out all the stuff you take out in the order you removed it with whatever screws or clips that were holding it in.  You don't want to lose anything or forget where it goes.  The front seats come out pretty easily, there are only four bolts each.  After the seats come out you have lots of room to remove the seat belt buckles and the center console.   Don't forget to remove all the brackets that hold the console to the floor.  As you can see from the picture, I have the amp that powers my 6x9s under the passenger seat so that had to come out too.

    The carpet is a little tricky to take out because it is pretty stiff.  I started from the back of the car and started to try to roll it up at the same time I was lifting it up.  An extra hand would help a lot at this point.  It's tough to get the carpet from getting caught on the emergency brake and the shifter.  I had to wiggle it a lot in order to free it but I eventually got it.  Now is a good time to vacuum the whole carpet and the interior of the car.  I found lots of lint, leaves, change and cobwebs.  Any surface you plan on sticking Dynamat to needs to be cleaned.  I just used a sponge with a bucket of hot water and a little detergent.

    The Dynamat sheets are razor sharp on the edges.  I got a couple deep cuts before I figured out to put some heavy duty gloves on.  The sheets are 18" x 32".  You basically have to lay the sheet down on the spot you want to stick it to figure out what pieces you'll have to trim off in order to make it fit.  I used a utility knife to make my cuts.  Next you have to peel off the backing, and starting with a corner, press it down and work your way across the sheet to make sure there are no air bubbles.  The backing is extremely sticky.  Once it's on there it won't come off so make sure you got it right the first time before you start applying pressure.  Dynamat recommends using their wooden roller to help in the application.  I didn't have one of those so I just used the rounded blunt end of a screwdriver.  That worked out pretty well.  Here's what the interior floor and truck looked like after I had it all in.  I already had removed the trunk carpeting and all the trunk trim about three years ago so I didn't have to worry about removing that.

    To remove the carpeting on the rear speaker shelf you have to take off the rear center brake light and pull out some plugs.  They brake easily so try and be careful.  I then applied the Dynamat and cut out the speaker holes.  Here's a finished shot of the speaker shelf.

    Taking off the door panels isn't too hard, but it's really time consuming because you have to do it to four doors if you have the sedan.  You'll need to remove the armrest, interior latch and the window roll down thing.  There are about 8 - 10 plugs that hold the door panel on.  I used a screw driver (my tool of choice) and wedged it between the panel and the door and used the leverage to pop the plugs out.  If the plastic behind the panel is in good shape you can reuse it.  If not, like mine was, you can buy a 4 ply plastic ground tarp and cut it to the size you need.  I stuck the Dynamat on and used duct tape to hold the plastic sheet to the door and  hopefully stop any moisture from getting inside.  This is a shot of the door with the Dynamat applied and then a shoot of the plastic sheeted door all ready to have the door panel put back on.

     Here you can see the other side of my front right door panel and how I mounted the speaker.  It's screwed directly to the door panel in order to have enough room so the window can roll down.  I used duct tape again to cover where the water damage was to the panel because it was really soft and it looked like it might  fall apart eventually.

    Now for the rest of the doors:

    This was a long project.  I spent 12 hours the first day and I still had to do the rear doors and part of the trunk to do.  The next day it took me 5 more hours to finish everything up.  I don't even want to know how much it would have cost me to have someone else install the Dynamat.  There's no way they would've done as good a job as me.  Plus it was kind of fun.