RAAMmat soundproofing install thread

[jcaputo]

My RAAMmat soundproofing stuff showed up today. I ordered it on April 30th, so it came pretty quickly. Kudos to Ray and crew for fast shipment.

I ordered enough to do a "small car going all out" as stated on the raammat site, which is 2 rolls of mat, 6 yards of foam, and 3 cans of adhesive (see pic). For anyone interested, the shipping weight of all of it was 57 lbs, so I will be adding at most 57 lbs to the car.

I'm planning on doing the full install over Memorial Day weekend. I'll be gutting the interior and doing the doors, floor, roof, trunk, and however much of the firewall I can reach. I've never taken out an entire interior before, wish me luck!

I will be doing a guide with pics for anyone interested in soundproofing their WRX. I'll post that up after the install is done. I'm thinking of doing a word doc or pdf for the guide so that the pictures don't disappear in a couple of years.

I'd really like to do some sort of before and after measurement of sound levels inside the car under various conditions. Anyone have a good (cheap) way of doing this? I don't want to buy any equipment, but I'd like to get some quantitative data on it.

[WRXDrummer]

I know you can get decibel readers from RadioShack. I'm not sure how much they are, and you said you didn't want to buy anything. Soooo I've got nothing.

Or you could just return if after...

[mustangtx63]

Any updates...?

[jcaputo]

Sorry for the delay.

I did the install over Memorial Day weekend, just didn't have time to write it up until now. I did it as a pdf to avoid losing pictures over time, but the forum will only let me upload a 293kb file... so I had to reduce the quality on the pictures a ton and break it up into many different pdfs.

Anyone want to let me host this (full file is 4mb)?

Anyway, here it is. Comments welcome.

[mustangtx63]

Wow that was a very awesome job and writeup! Thanks for taking the time to document the process and share all the details.

First of all, there is no way possible that you could have made it sound like the interior of a Lexus/BMW, the acoustics of a WRX are way out of league compared to any luxury automobile.

One more thing that you could do which is definitely a crucial step into making everything sound better audio-wise is to toss the crappy factory speakers and upgrade to bigger and better component speakers or just bigger and better door speakers. Also, since you did a thorough job of deadening the trunk, you might consider adding a subwoofer.

I plan on raamating all four of my doors, the trunk, and some in the cabin once I decide which speakers to go with. Your writeup will definitely help me. Thanks for all of your time and effort.

[jcaputo]

Thanks. I hope it's helpful for anyone looking to soundproof their rex.

I thought about upgrading the speakers at the same time, even went to Best Buy one night while it was all ripped apart. It occured to me that it would be really easy to wire up amps and subs with the interior out. Then I decided I'd leave the factory stuff in because I wanted to see what kind of different just adding the soundproofing would make. That, and my primary focus was not to make the sound system better, but to quiet the interior.

The doors and the trunk are easy to do and easy to get to. You shouldn't have any trouble doing that. Thanks again for the compliments.

[mustangtx63]

Thanks. I hope it's helpful for anyone looking to soundproof their rex.

I thought about upgrading the speakers at the same time, even went to Best Buy one night while it was all ripped apart. It occured to me that it would be really easy to wire up amps and subs with the interior out. Then I decided I'd leave the factory stuff in because I wanted to see what kind of different just adding the soundproofing would make. That, and my primary focus was not to make the sound system better, but to quiet the interior.

The doors and the trunk are easy to do and easy to get to. You shouldn't have any trouble doing that. Thanks again for the compliments.

No problem. Thanks for the tips. I'll be sure to let you know how my install goes. When and if I get to it...

[jcaputo]

I posted up some long-term impressions here.