Hey guys, we are a new site sponsor and just want to let you know we are here to help you get the most from your deadening projects wether or not you are a customer does not matter to us, you are still our fellow enthusiasts

This is a general guide, we will create a more specific tC guide soon and once we get our hands on an A and B we will write one for them as well.

Please do yourselves a favor and use butyl based deadeners only and avoid the potential problems you can have with asphaltic products.
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GUIDE TO INSTALLING RAAMmat(or your other favorite brand)
– BY RICK MCCALLUM, RAAMaudio

Here is what I recommend; this is from years of experience and a lot of customer feedback. It works very well.

Tools:
Utility knife, used to cut and trim the mat and to rub it down into corners.
Heat gun, only used if really cold out to warm up the metal, mat or both, not needed for most installs.
Roller, so little need with RAAMmat that we have never sold them or given cheap ones aways as sales gimics;) Of course you can pick one up at your local hardware store if you want to use it.


Front/Rear Doors (With Speakers):
Remove door panel and plastic moisture barrier; toss the barrier in the trash. Place one layer of mat on outer door skin and overlap the seams, cover at least 3/4ths of the suface area. Place two additional smaller layers, about 12" sq., behind the speakers, then place one patch of closed cell foam on top of those layers. Check for loose wires, cables, etc., inside the door, secure with foam tape, tie wraps, etc.

Build up the speaker mounting location. I make a solid baffle usually from MDF(medium density fiberboard)that fastens to this area to mount the speaker to, sometimes needed to be fairly thick for clearance issues with the back of the speaker and window mechanism. To save some weight you can use Baltic Birch plywood, around half the weight as MDF, harder to find, costs more, we use it for most projects now.

Seal up the door access holes with a piece of thin galvanized tin, anodized aluminum (aluminum screen door repair panels from your local hardware store work just fine) I use self taping sheet metal screws to mount the metal with. If you have door lock rods to work around you can slip some wire loom over them and bend the metal to make sure not binding then mat up to but not touching the rods. Then install one layer of mat over the whole inner door metal, overlapping the seams by 1/2", seal all air passages possible, cut the mat back around 1" from edge of door panel. Add a layer of 1/8" closed cell foam (Ensolite is best) to the top of the mat, cut around all mounting points; same for the mat. To make sure the door panel will fit back on properly, cut back around 1/2" from the edge of the panel.

Next tap on the door trim panel, any resonating areas can be matted on the back side. Usually, about 1/4 to 1/3 of the surface is enough. Install the panel and test the door; slam it a few times and listen for rattles, etc.

Doors Without Speakers:
Just do the inner door metal. There is no need to mat the outer door skin.

Kick panels:
Remove the kick panel trim and look for hole under the pad there, usually opens up to the lower A pillars, a great place for road noise to enter the vehicle. Seal them up with some mat and a layer of foam, you can even add more foam to the back of the trim panel.


Rear Side Panels/Outer Metal Skin:
One layer of mat over the area then a layer of foam to absort ambient noise. If possible you can seal up access to the area instead, like you would do a door without speakers, some cars and trucks have areas like this. If that is the case, not needed on the outer skin if you are blocking the area from the interior already


Rear hatch:
Same as rear doors without speakers or side panesl

Floor:
Place one layer of RAAMmat everywhere. Tap on the floor and add a second and sometimes a third layer to the resonating areas only. ANY MORE IS A WASTE OF MAT AND EFFORT. Once an area is deadened, there is nothing more to gain with adding more mat. Some tend to over use the mat in some areas and not enough in others. Add a layer of ensolite and in some areas less supported, meaning flat more resonate prone ones a second layer can be added. When doing two layers you can add some strips of mat between the layers in key noise areas to absorb acoustical energy in those trouble spots.

Roof:
Not usually needed as it acheives the least beneficial results for alot of effort but if going all out, then most certainly do so. The best advice is to wait until the rest of the vehicle is done, then test and decide what to do. One layer of RAAMmat is the most that should be needed with the possibility of some patches in the middle of the least supported areas. Then cover it with a solid layer of closed cell foam.

 

Hey guys, thanks for the guidelines!
This is a project I am about to undertake, so it will come in handy! Want to sponsor an xA?
I have not heard of your product, but I have seen an xA that had been deadened and it makes a ton of difference!

 

Most welcome

The main thing to remember is you need to deaden a vehicle according to the purpose you have in mind for it.

1) Just a nice quiet daily driver with a modest audio system.

2) Super bass monster without concern for road noise or the front stage(mids and tweets, etc)

3) A bit of both worlds, bass and great sound quality and no rattles or buzzes.

4) etc, etc, etc....... Budget, effort willing to put into the project.

All these come into play and that is one thing we do that stands out from our competitors, we spend a great deal of time 7 days a week helping our fellow enthusiasts acheive their goals.

We spend so much time doing this that we spend very little on marketing our products, part of why you have not heard of us yet. We are well known in many audio circles and now are getting alot of restorods, classics, limos, big trucks, even big home theater projects for air ducts, etc. The biggest to date is one of those $1million plus motor homes for some celebrity but for security reasons they cannot tell us who it is for

We could deaden a couple dozen cars with the materials they have installed into it!

As for sponsorships, we only do a few full ones a year and have several tC's on that list for this year, one coming by tomorrow to get started on. Mainly we do super high end installs for cars going to CES, SEMA, etc. Our tC is scheduled for CES in 2007 in fact.

We semi sponsor 40-50 or more other cars each year as well, proposals can be sent to rick@raamaudio.com. You must have very specific plans, goals, some sort of evidence of acomplishments or, just be able to convince us with a well written and heartfelt offer for assistance.

We help alot of up and coming new people, we can tell who they are by the way they present themselves, I have been dealing with young people for many many years and know the good ones quite easily seen, 20 years in the US Navy helped me learn to be a good character judge(usually, lol

Rick

 

Very nice sir.

Do you have any pics of a tC door that's deadened? I assume you aren't going all out on your fast car Just wondering what, if any, modification you had to do on the back of the plastic panel. I haven't sealed mine up yet but it looks like you'd need to cut away some of the styrofoam in order for the panel to sit properly.

 

A couple direct jabs at competitors with the asphalt and free roller comments, but overall looks like a pretty good writeup.


I tackled mine without a writeup and ended up doing about what you reccomend in most cases (except i did not use any closed cell foam)

 

One mention of rollers is not really a couple of jabs;) When you use another brands name by giving away a roller with your competing product that is a sales gimmick and one I find quite unethical so we have never done it and our products have never needed it.

As for asphalt mat, we sold that type of product for several years while working on being able to offer a butyl based product at a great price. Once we could me moved away from asphalt right away as we only want to sell the best we can offer. Our asphalt based version was quite good, we have had at least 99.98% success with all installs but that was never good enough to us, now we have 100% with our butyl based BXT RAAMmat.

As for jabs at competitors asphalt products, that was not us, that site is privately owned and produced totally outside of our control, all we did was send in samples when they requested them


Rick

 

used raammat on mine. As soon as I can restart my other laptop I will post some pictures of my work.

 

Nice tips! Thanks raamaudio.


John

 

Mandos,
We have worked on three tC deadening projects, all at different levels, ours being the most conservative but will add more as needed once we finally have a system running long enough to tell

We will be posting a tutorial for tCs and eventually for all Scions in the future, with pics of the important steps.

On the door panels we like to add a few patches of mat here and there as required but only after all else is done and testing to listen for any resonances, the tC is pretty solid so not all that much needed.

Yes, we cut the styrofoam, have to trim it just so it touches the door areas we deadened, helps for a more solid feel and less resonance. I use a bread knife for it, best tool I have ever found for hardened styrofoam

We are proud to have our long time friend and associate Retrodrive using our products to the highest level possible, world champion!


Thanks Pete!!

 

pictures would b very nice please

 

pictures of doors?? tutorials?

 

We have alot of pics but no time to do anything with them at the moment. We will have a tC tutorial on our new website once launched which should be soon(specific tC tutorial will be awhile yet but a good general one is ready)

Rick

 

for reference bump

 

Got any time this year?

 

I wish, 18 hours today, so far, still not done working, some of the joys of self employment

Rick

 

thanks for info!

 

i'M SELF employed too. Only find myself working the 6 hours of the day though?

Until then, I'll just read over the install and try to become more comfortable about the ideal of having my car ripped apart by your guys

 

this is great!