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

loaddown - Keep in mind this is a Prius - not a car which has a huge demand for the aftermarket - best bet is to start playing around with some fiberglass or Carbon Fiber and fabricate something yourself. I thought it would look good without the huge license plate indentation - but I guess due to the indentation I will just keep my front plate on, I have had way too many front plate tickets anyway.

 

The Priuschat store SharkFin antenna came in and got installed last night here are some updated pics.




And here is a picture of the car as it is today - Really needing my lowering springs - hurry up Tanabe!

 

I did not measure the holes but the bigger of the holes is literally only millimeters smaller than the square HSD pard of the side Hybrid logo. Its big I would just measure the height of the logo and subtract maybe a 1/16 of an inch or a millimeter or two and that is about the size. A larger side marker would possibly cover the holes if that is the look you are going for.

 

I could not figure that one out and was impatient - I imagine it requires removal of the whole mirror, probably starting with the interior door panel. I attempted to snap off the cover on the mirror and it looked like it was going to break - I think its attached from the inside, being impatient and lazy I just decided to mask off the mirror and an area around it and smoke the lens while still attached to the vehicle.

 

You get smoke tail light spray - basically its a spray paint can with a tinted clear coat formulated for plastic automotive lenses. Use all basic spray paint techniques to get a clean even coat with no streaks, bubbles, orange peel, or running.

 

Now that its no longer 110 degrees every day - I finally got un-lazy and started the matting of my interior. I have finished the hatch door, "trunk", and the roof. I double layered the roof and already can notice a dramatic reduction in Highway wind noise. Sorry I could not get a better picture but late at night with low light and a cell camera this is the best I could do. My goal is to try and finish the floor, doors, and as much firewall as possible without removal of the dash - within the next couple of weeks, probably a section or two per night. Looking forward to getting rid of the road/tire noise and hopefully some of the annoying engine drone. Now that the supporting mods are in process I can start to think about what speakers I want to put in.

The headliner in this car is kind of a Pain to remove, if anyone ever has questions for headliner removal just let me know, certainly some unique methods of fastening I have not seen before.

 

I paid $150 shipped for 100 sqft of FatMat. I have read many mixed reviews on this product (after I bought it), but my first hand experience is that it makes a noticeable difference. There is no skill required just removal of body panels, peel and stick, apply pressure with the wooden roller that comes with the mat, then put the body panels back on. I am pretty happy already with the reduction of wind noise, it actually is starting to feel like a higher end car with the sound reduction. I still have not completed the 4 doors, or the floor, but once I do I expect it to be Lexus quiet inside. I also decided I will be double layering both the floor and doors, if im taking the panels off I may as well do that while they are off rather than having to do it again at a later time. If I run out of Mat - I will order a little bit more to get the job done. It will add about 30lbs of weight to your car, but well worth it for the comfort. In addition to sound insulation it also has a radiant barrier so it will help insulate and keep the car cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter once it is to temperature - this in theory should help reduce the load on the Heater and A/C - which will ultimately improve efficiency (although i doubt it will be noticeable at all).

Surrylic - if the car noise is one of the primary things you dislike about the ride ( I know it was for me ) you should consider this improvement. From what I have read, this is comparatively less good than other products, but I can say it makes a difference for sure. Its not difficult to do it yourself, once you figure out how to remove each of the panels it is super simple. If you really are concerned about the DIY aspect, most car audio installation places or custom car places will do it for you for the cost of product + labor.

 

Took a day off work and finished some more of the sound deadening install - attached are some pics. All I have left to do is the doors, but I ordered two pairs of Infinity Kappa 639i and decided to wait until the speakers come in for the doors that way I can sound deaden and speaker install during the same door panel removal. With the floor, pillars, trunk, hatch, rear quarters-fender, and roof matted (double layered in most places) I have noticed a significant reduction in road, tire, and wind noise. The only real problem area yet is the engine noise which is now much more noticeable with the reduction of other noise. Removal of the dash to deaden the firewall is not something I am planning on doing any time soon, so for now I will just live with the engine noise. The Stereo is already more clear and audible at lower volumes with a cleaner sound - and that is on OEM speakers. The install went fairly smoothly and I will say that for sure I am happy with the decision to install the sound deadener. Despite bad reviews the product I installed was FatMat I will have used the entire 100sqft to finish the install. As always please feel free to use me as a resource for interior part removal, as I have been through the process.

The pictures below are not the completed car, it was too dark to get finished pictures at 1AM this morning when I finished.



And here is a "Pile of Car" in my garage after the vehicle was stripped of its interior.



And here is a picture of the speakers I ordered - 2 sets - 4 speakers in total (well 12 if you count the tweeters as speakers like Toyota does )

 

The sound difference is unreal. I did not notice how much of an improvement it was until riding in a different car again and hearing all of the road/wind noise. It also does a great job of keeping the sound in the car, I added a temporary system last weekend 2 - 12" cheapo generic used old subs, and a janky old amp that had been sitting in a friends garage for a few years. The bass is almost too much I have the amps gain turned way down, but even with it cranked up you can hardly hear the bass outside the car, I am very impressed with the fatmat's ability to keep the sound within the car and absorb the bass frequency vibrations. And I still have the two front doors left to complete.

I am still waiting on the speakers - they were paid for on Aug 28 and I still have not received them - if I do not get them by Friday I am going to file a claim with ebay/paypal and attempt to get my money back.

100sqft was not enough to complete the project, I ordered 10 more feet thinking that would be enough, but it finished only 1 more door, so i ended up getting 20 more sqft, and will probably need 10 more. So in total I will have used 140sqft, but that is double layering a lot of the car, I think if you were frugal with it you could easily complete the project with 100sqft. If I did the project all over again I would probably have chosen a higher end mat, since I was literally removing everything from the vehicle ( a lot of time dedicated ) might as well go all out - and the cost differential would have been only about $70 more. The reason for this thought is that the additional 10ft I ordered was the Fatmat XXX -Rattle Trap which is the mid-grade mat - its a little thicker and performs a little better, but the last 20sqft I bought was purchased locally from a high end car audio place and that stuff (ASC Matting) is significantly heavier duty than the cheaper lines I bought - it weighs a lot more and the aluminum barrier on it feels almost like sheet metal rather than aluminum foil. But you live and learn... If it is in the budget I would recommend the Fatmat brand MegaMat - its in the $220 - 250 range for 100sqft, but I don't think that you would need to double layer that stuff as it uses a higher butyl content, thicker matting and thicker aluminum barrier.

Good luck with the new job (and higher pay!), and check back next week sometime as I plan to post some more photos of the door's matted and speakers installed.

 

Well my Infinity Kappas finally arrived last night - I was busy and did not have time to install them, however I did install one of them to hear them in action. I knew the factory speakers were junk but these are night and day. I installed the passenger side rear door speaker, faded all the way to the rear, and then changed the balance all the way to the left and then all the way to the right to hear the difference - incredible how terrible the factory speakers sound. Just for laughs I put the new and old speaker side by side to compare them visually, the weight difference is crazy - the factory ones are literally made of paper and plastic and weigh maybe an ounce or two with the bulky plastic housing. The kappas weigh in at about a pound each but the pictures speak for themselves. Look at the magnet size difference! Ran into no issues on the install, the infinity came with size adapter plates but the holes did not line up, so i just drilled new holes, mounting depth was fine.



One additional benefit to these particular speakers is that they are very efficient. The Sensitivity rating is 95db, and the resistance is 2ohm, because of that when hooked up to the factory head unit they are slightly louder than the OEM speakers. They are 75watt RMS rated, I am sure the factory head unit is not pushing more than 25 tops though, but it is more than adequate for me right now. The Sound quality is amazing, crystal clear and a whole new range of frequencies can now be heard in the music. Below are some pictures of the installed speaker.



And here is the temporary down firing box in the rear - nothing special, essentially generic pair of 12" subs with a very very old 200 watt RMS rockford amp. This was from a friends garage and had been there for years, I plan to put in a little bit more powerful amp, and a clean sound quality sub in a stealth box - once complete it will be completely integrated and no cargo space will be lost, only the onboard spare tire. The amp is mounted in the spare tire cavity underneath the down firing box now.

 

I would recommend heading to Toyota and getting a bunch of the plastic connectors. I had several broken snaps in the doors, the connectors that push in are never the same, so I like to replace those each time, except I usually wait until the entire project is done to replace them all in case i need to remove them again.

Center console, the cup holder section pops right off, the trim piece with the "EV Mode" button pops right off, then there are 2 - 10mm screws near where the cupholder came off, and then the 3 - 10mm screws under the "false floor" in the console, then it just lifts right out.

For the rear seats you need to remove the 3 plastic trim pieces that cover the 12v battery and the Hybrid battery (under back seat). The connectors here were a style I was not familiar with and I did break several of them, there is a small button in the center, you press that in then the whole button fastener should pop right out. Once the fastener is removed pull the center plug (button) all the way out, on re-install push in the outside, then insert the little plug until it is flush, but be carefull not to push it past flush as that will disengage the connector again. After the trim is removed, you can take off the seat backs, there are two bolts on each one, the corner of the fabric is velcroed over the bolts in the bottom corners of each half of the seat backs. Once those are out the seat bottom just pulls straight up - no connectors holding it in. The whole process takes about 5 minutes - very easy.