Looking for direction on deadening my car.

[Aarmin]

First, my plan is to do the front two doors. I must say, this is a budget build, so I do not think I can go out crazy and strip the car. Maybe someday down the road?

I plan on starting with a butyl (not asphalt) based dampener material. Most car-stereo marketed dampener is butyl based so not much of a problem. I want to cover the whole door, but first I will need something ridged to cover the holes in the door frame. I was thinking of using Masonite (hardwood), but its not waterproof. After that I will apply the dampener material.

After that, I plan on isolating the 6" mid-driver speaker. Using weatherstripping foam between the driver and MDF baffle; also using butyl rope between the baffle and door/dampener.

After that I was thinking about attaching Mass Loaded Vinyl (MLV). Would it be worth it if I'm only doing the front doors? It is a 2005 Honda Accord, so the floors are already factory treated (but I understand nothing like a luxury car).

Should I jump into doing the rear doors also?

I'm wondering what to do with the door panels.

Any insight appreciated.

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[stevew007 10+ year member]

it all sounds good to me. just make sure the masonite is screwed very well so it dont vibrate. we did a crx 2 layers on the door and 1 layer on the back of the door panel.

take your time and clean the area's very well we used some sand paper to ruff it up a little then cleaned it with acitone. we did have slight problems with the fitment of some of the hardware window crank,covers things like that.

oh and dont forget to cut out all the mounting holes as you cover them we missed a couple of spots and it was a pain in the rear to find the holes.

but the end results were great when you slammed the door closed it was just a thud sound and when sitting in the car you could feel it in your ears. so the car was sealed very well.

 

[Rudy 10+ year member]

For a budget build with speakers in the doors, I probably wouldn't bother with making separate access hole covers. If I did, I'd make sure they were waterproof.

Here's my thinking. Start with vibration damper as you've described. Then add a layer of MLV to the inner skin. Ideally you'd want CCF on both sides of the MLV. When the trim panel is reinstalled, the CCF and MLV will be pressed against the inner skin. This will acoustically reinforce the speaker mounting plane and should accomplish 99% of what the covers would while also blocking traffic and front wheel noise. You won't have to drive screws into the sheet metal and you can just pull the MLV and CCF off the next time you need to get back inside the door. Replace it when you're done and you haven't made extra work for yourself or made irreversible changes to the car.

I'd save the rear doors to do as part of the next phase. Nothing beats the front doors as a relatively inexpensive and effective first project.