And in rolls the SaaBeeru ... by Bradcr

5 minute(s) of a 145 minute read

Swapped out the HKS SSQV for a Synapse DV. I posted the HKS in the classifieds if anyone is interested. 

Well, I won this at Forum Fest, guess my turbo timer install just got a lot more complicated but at least I can unlock my car from more than 10 feet away now. 

6-30-2013

Did a crapload of work this week after Forum Fest and seeing how clean a car can be, and on the other end how sloppy a so called 'show car' can truly become. Tip for next time- need to remember not to explain to the judge all the comfort features to the point that I forget to mention that the car has BEER ON TAP IN IT 50% of the time. I wouldn't have won jack anyway, but seriously, dunno where my brain was at.

First off, my FMIC trim does not like hot weather and decided to tun into goddamn black Licorice. Then the corners of my bumper were refusing to stay pushed in, and to finish it off I realized I may have the worst plasti-dipped grill on earth. Seriously, it has more bumps than rhino-liner.

Pulled the front bumper cover and start looking for improvement. I realized that there's a 'channel' between the flat black plastic I mostly cut off and the painted part. I ran a utility knife through the channel until it split, came out cleaner than my original jigsaw work, also updated the how-to with this tip:

While the bumper was off I built myself a boost leak tester and found a couple of vacuum hoses that needed replacing:

Then I peeled off the old plasti-dip, heated up my can a bit this time, and gave my grill one of the smoothest textures I've seen. Left the center wing unpainted this time just for something different. Put on new edge trim, and now my corners clip in with no issues to boot:

Next I got back into the soundproofing. Pulled the front door panels and made easy templates to stick to the inner skin:

Installation was easy too, but getting the door clips back in was a huge PITA, had to trim down the outer edge of the MLV quite a bit. On top of that, it produced a bit of a sub box effect on my front speakers. Fortunately, I can adjust the highpass on them from stereo, but I couldn't eliminate it entirely. If I can't dial in the sound, I may pull the moisture barrier and dynamat the outer skin, but I'm not convinced it will solve the issue, probably just have to box or MLV behind the speaker:

The volume drop wasn't significant, but I definitely notice the blocking of reflected sound to my sides wile driving:

Cruising:

At idle:

Next I figured I need to finish out the cargo area and complete my isolation 'bubble' back there. Problem is, after the shock towers, it took me a few days to get all the flooring to fit straight again. Adding sound blocking underneath it would only make it much worse. Then I thought of the success a lot of guys have had with the sound blocking attached to floor mats and realized I just need to cut out one of these:

And then cover it with one of these:

This worked perfectly, and the edges of this MLV sheet line right up with the lower edges of what I installed in the shock towers.

Testing didn't show a huge improvement, unfortunately, but the 'Dead Zone' behind me is really significant now, like someone stuck a huge block to the back of my headrest. Higher pitched road noise is essentially gone, I'm getting almost solely exhaust tones.lExhaust sound is very obviously coming in through my rear doors now, here's the measurements, no real change from before though:

Cruising:

At idle: