My door speaker install and the rest someday.

[minhi]

gotcha, might not happen to you but watch out for noise coming in via the preamp cables.

[diverse]

my phono cables from HU to amp run down the same side as the battery cable and there is no interference.

The whine of the supercharger and the rattles make sure of that!!

[Bad Ess]

Quote:

Originally posted by diverse
my phono cables from HU to amp run down the same side as the battery cable and there is no interference.

The whine of the supercharger and the rattles make sure of that!!

I am going to work on the phono cable run tonight. I won't be concerned. Sorry about your rattles....

I won't get a good road test for a while, the car is an unassembled kit in my shop.

[DaveNagy]

BadEss, can you please give me a few more details on your "foam work"? I understand that you created a "bulkhead" that is more-or-less lined up with the gas filltube, but I'm not quite grasping where the foam is. Isn't the foam trapped between two bulkheads? If not, did you completely fill some area with foam? I don't see foam in the speaker compartment itself, nor in the "amp compartment" just aft of the speaker, so where is it?

From the the back edge of the passenger door opening, how does it go? Is it something like: <speaker enclosure><mystery bulkhead?><foam><fabricated bulkhead><amp and tail light compartment>?

-Dave

[minhi]

it's hard to imagine w/o being in the car, but the foam is behind the amp. the speaker goes into a hole which is part of a enclose area formed by the inner metal wall and the outer car wall. the metal to the outside of the amp is the interior metal wall there is air space behind that, and then the exteriour sheet metal.


ok that probably doesn't make any sense, sorry. it's very clear once you have the speaker out and the rear panel off the car

[Bad Ess]

Dave, Minhi is correct. The speaker box is defined by the outside skin, the door post and the panel I installed. The spray foam was injected into the holes in the panels I installed. The panel created one bulkhead. The excess foam just swelled back over the wheel wells and into the cavities. The next step was to put the PVC dampening layer on the metal that can vibrate. On the outside skin it creates mass to cut transmission of the road noise. The silver foam is to absorb stray noise. This stuff does what dynamat does not do, dampens and quiets the cavity. The rest of the car and doors will have the heavy material against the tin and a top layer of the silver faced foam over it.

The link to soundown is below. They don't have a retail package yet but this is the stuff to use. At some point I will tell them how much material is needed to do the MINI.

The first smoke test!!!!! I fired up one amp and the rears. with no interior panels and the back open. It is great. The speakers are neutral, natural and clean. With my head in the back door it is louder than I will ever want it while I am in the car and that's not turning on the fronts.
My tools bounce around on the seat well.

The pre amp outs modification does not work well. DON'T BOTHER TO TRY THIS. I got a ground loop hum and it seems the dynamics dropped. For now the Blauplunkt high level converters will be used until I change heads. (If and when, it sounds pretty good.)


check soundown

[DaveNagy]

Ah. After reading these additional descriptions and going back and staring at the photos some more, I think I have a pretty good idea where the foam is. Do I understand correctly that you got the foam all the way to the top of the open space, even though the foam was able to flow past the wheel wells?

What flavor of Great Stuff did you use? Apparently some types expand more than others. Were you able to buy it locally?

There are plenty of "consumer" grade sound-absorbing foam mats available out there. Dynamat sells a few varieties, usually with "liner" in their name. "TacMat" is also a foam product. Here's their web page. (Note: Dynamat-brand products are IMO horribly overpriced. I'd buy their competitor's products instead. For instance, B-Quiet seems to have some reasonably priced stuff.)

-Dave

[Bad Ess]

Dave, I used the Great Stuff/Gaps and Cracks (Who runs the marketing at Dow?). It is a 16 oz can from Home Depot. It must be a special size for HD as I don't see it in the Web call out.

When working with this product use a drop cloth, wear gloves, do not play with it until it is hard (cures). As I said somewhere I stuck a 16" piece of clear 3/8 ID hose on the straw tube and taped it. The can has to be in the inverted position to work. I then started at the middle hole with the tube stuck 6" in the panel and let it rip for about half a can. Then I moved up to the top hole and let the rest of the can go. My shop is about 60 degrees F. The can was 70. I am not sure what the best cure temp is. It took about a day to cure but as I cut away chunks that had pushed through the panel holes some uncured stuff started to grow again. The pile grew over the wheel well to the gas cap cable on the left side and about the same on the right. The foam is a good sound deadener as you can get anyway so it is easier to let it go than try to get in with other product there. There was no real pressure. I glued in the panel but it did not flex. I thought this would be the relief valve if the foam went nuts. It didn't. My unlived horror was to go to the shop in the morning and see a new shape to my MINI.

[Bad Ess]

I removed both inside trim pieces along the door frame. One 12 foot phono pair goes from the left rear amp to the HU on that side. I made a 20 and a 15 foot twisted pair of 16 ga. tinned wire to run along the right side with the other 12 foot phono pair for the right amp which is for the front.
The speaker wires go through a rubber grommet that has a big bundel going through it behind the glove box. The wires come through behind a baffel near the DSC piping. From there I went inside the baffel to the left side and through a rubber grommet to follow the factory wires to the side light and down to the rubber bellows (for lack of another description) covering the wires to the door. I made a small slit in the rubber on the door. (Look from the inside to see where to do this.) Before I inserted the wires in the door I slid on a 1 foot piece of black neoprene I skinned off a 3 wire cable to hide and protect the wires between the door and the engine space. The rubber on the door seals this well and it barely shows. I used a black wire tie to hold the new cable behind the rubber bellows.

Here are some pictures of the soundown treatment. By the way, the doors close and feel like a Rolls and the sound is unreal.

Here is the first stage of dampening.

[Bad Ess]

The door

[Bad Ess]

The foam

[Bad Ess]

The door skin has heavy dampening and foam. Before adding soundown there is about 1" between the bubble and the window when down. It no longer feels cheasy when you tap on the inside.

[GadgetGav]

Great posts Ess....
This is quite a project...! How long do you think you've spent on it so far..?

[Bad Ess]

Quote:

Originally posted by GadgetGav
Great posts Ess....
This is quite a project...! How long do you think you've spent on it so far..?

Yea, As you know (Living in NE.)the snow and salt are not making me hurry to drive so I am working on this on and off. I think the second time would be much faster. I think sound proofing and changing the speakers would be a couple of days. Not counting the foaming of the 6x9 holes. I spent some time figuring how much interior I had to rip out and whether or not to foam. Don't start a project like this if you need the car in the morning. You can buy front speaker adapters I think but make sure they seal at the door skin. You don't need to bracket the amps but I found that really simple. All the tools are available to me. I like this kind of hobby so for me it is (Most of the time.) fun. And I am thrilled with the results and will be enjoing every mile either listening to the supercharger or some great funk while in traffic.

I am now at the head unit. Me thinks I am going to scrap the factory head. Stay tuned.

[MCS1]

Ess,

You're an inspiration! My speakers and Dynamat arrived today - finally!

I will get the installation started on Friday afternoon - and hopefully get at least the rears finished by Sunday.

I've weighed all the things I'm adding tonight:

• 4 sheets of Dynamat = 800g
• Infinity 60.5CS Kappa 6.5 inch Speakers = 934 g X 2 = 1868 g
• Infinity Tweeters = 86g X 2 = 172 g
• Crossovers = 168 g X 2 = 336 g
• Rear Infinity Reference 6 X 9 3 ways = 1700 g X 2 = 3400g

Total added = 6576 g or about 14.4 lbs.

I'll need to weigh what I take out as well, of course!

John