Picked up my new PC3 today - HIDs installed, debadged, more to come

Finished the front doors last night - I used a much heavier duty sound dampener in the skin of the front doors and it is clearly superior to the fatmat, but the cost is also significantly more. When the front doors close now the sound difference is noticeable, my friend said "those doors close now and sound like a tank". The car is much quieter inside now with the doors complete, there was the Acoustic Sound control in the outside inner skin of the door, this stuff is butyl based and the aluminum barrier is very thick almost like a sheet metal, this made it difficult to work with, but as I mentioned, it is noticeably better.

On the inside inner skin (what you can see) I used the Fatmat Rattle Trap (middle grade product - higher quality than what i used for the rest of the car) - this was easier to work with than the ASC stuff, which made it good for the inner door skin. The Kappa's are installed in the front doors now as well and the sound quality is noticeably improved. I have one door left to mat (drivers side rear) and one speaker left to install and that will be done today.

The only road/wind sound that I am really hearing at this point is from the engine drone, but I am not motivated enough to pull the dash out right now - I have heard that the under hood sound dampers can significantly reduce engine noise in the cab by absorbing the vibrations - so I may go that route in the next few months, It is basically a layer of the regular sound dampener, covered with a thick foam sound absorbing layer and a radiant barrier layer on top. Here is a picture of the front door, the other one was already done and reassembled but same concept on the other side.


Edit - here is the last door - the speaker is installed and this project is finished. The Bass booms but I am still trying to locate several rattle areas, the worst rattle is coming from the rearview mirror, which is essentially useless with the music on. Any ideas to improve the mirror use? Anyway - the sound deadening and speaker install is complete, the improvement in sound with the infinity's is unreal.

 

I put 38 pounds of sound deadener in the car. Nothing that will make a noticeable impact on fuel economy.

 

10 Sq feet per door if you want to do the outer skin and inner skin, if you are just doing one of the door skins, you can probably do fine with a 25sqft bulk pack - if you are doing the rear hatch door however - you will need a little bit extra. Honsetly of all the parts I did - the doors provided the least amount of benefit in regards to outside sound control - the Roof and floor made a much more noticeable difference.

 

I would reccomend doing the floor - that removed as much road noise as doing the roof did. There is really not a ton of additional hardware, really the only thing that you need to remove is the seats and trim panels, most of the pannels literally just pull off, except in front of the rear seats, there are re-useable plastic plugs, you can push in on them to release, then the plug slides out as a unit. Carpet is held in place by the trim panels and seats. The seats have only 4 bolts each, covered by snap on trim panels. I think I spent more time doing the headliner than the floor, plus if you plan on running wires for an amp - no better time to do it than when everything is out, you can run wires down the center or side and make sure they are securely fastened so they wont creep out of the sides like they sometimes do. But if you decide to not go that route - I filly understand too. If you are doing a single layer I would reccomend the mega mat - or the highest quality mat you can afford, the fatmat does the job, but the high end stuff i put in the door looks much better. Also I would probably try and get the 100sqft bulk pack, as 75' might be pushing it, even with just a single layer. ( I did not double layer the whole floor, only the trunk area, roof, doors, and hatch).

Headliner - removal of the visors is pretty straight forward, and the stuff in the back for the seat belt - pretty simple - find bolts and take them out. The pull handles however were sort of confusing, there are bolts, but then metal shims that have to be squeezed together and pulled out to release the handles, one you figure one shim out, the rest come easy - and reinstallation you need to be careful not to push them in too far. The microphone thing just pops out of the headliner, and the dome light was difficult too if I remember (its been about a year since I did this now). Once everything was loose, open the hatch, curve, the headliner a bit, and slide it right out the back - do not loose any of the foam pieces that may fall off, they are needed to hold the headliners shape. Good luck with that, people always tell me how quiet my car is inside, and I have subs that will get too loud for my comfort - like literally makes eardrums sore - but outside the car, the bass sound is hardly noticeable, the mids and trebbile however are pretty clear - im trying to figure out a way to isolate those frequencies inside the door.

Yes you will need to drill new holes for just about any speaker you get, I believe there are plastic adaptor plates available, or I even saw a tutorial on here where someone modded the factory plastic housings, but even then you will need to get screws, the factory speakers are riveted in and need to be drilled out, not difficult, but just an annoyance. The Infinitis I added make a night and day difference in the car, with the subs - it sounds really nice. For the sub wire, I just used a line level converter ($20-30 from walmart or anywhere with car audio dept), and tapped into a speaker wire on the back of the head unit. I also tapped into a switched power line on the back of the head unit, I found the information on which wires to tap on a tutorial on this site - I dont recall which ones I used now though ( again - its been about a year - sorry ). Where are you located geographically? If you are in my area - i would be more than happy to help out or let you take a listen to my speakers if you are trying to decide on a setup. Let me know if you have any follow up questions, and if i get a free minute or two, I will go pull the head unit and see which wires I tapped into. Also - I see you are new to the forums - welcome! ​