Sound Deadening

One of the first "mods" I did while continuously having my ICE upgraded is to sound deaden the entire car. Most people would call this sound proofing but I prefer the term sound deadening cause if you're expecting a sound proofing effect than you'll be sorely disappointed. As you know the Sentra is a Japanese car and the sound deadening is nowhere near for example a BMW or Mercedes. There are lots of exposed sheet metal! What sound deadening does is to lower (not totally eliminate) the noise floor and reduce unwarranted sounds (especially from the doors due to intense vibration from the door mounted speakers). Sound deadening also adds mass and serves as reinforcement for thin steel panels to prevent flexing thus reducing the noise from this area. It also acts as a barrier against tyre, road and wind noise. For more details on the benefits of sound deadening and the different materials used do refer to the excellent The Sound Deadener Showdown resource site.

Anyway I had all my doors done. The front doors alone had two layers while the rears one layer. I also had my a-pillars, rear seat floor, rear deck, entire boot including spare tyre well and boot lid done. Sound deadening materials used were a combination on Wurth, Deadpan and GSI Dampit. These are popular sound deadening materials. I did not use the ever de facto standard Dynamat Extreme as Uncle does not carry this material. Even with the cheaper materials used the cost still stretched to >RM2K by the time I'm done. Sound deadening is not cheap mind you!

Picture below of the outer door skin sound deadened with a layer of Wurth

Inner door skin done up with Deadpan. I had the stock transparent plastic sheeting removed as that was proving to be contributing to the additional unwanted sound effect.
Rear deck with Wurth material
Rear boot lid with GSI Dampit material
Beneath rear seats all the way to the boot and spare tyre well also with GSI Dampit material

All this is not easy work and takes up a lot of time. I can vouch for that having personally seen with me own eyes the amount of work involved to install all the sound deadening. Lots of cutting and trimming involved. Excellent workmanship as usual from Uncle Yeoh as can be seen from the pixs.

And the downsides? Well apart from the already mentioned high costs, sound deadening also adds mass. A lot of additional unwanted mass! I wouldn't be suprised if I added 20-30kg of mass or more to the Slowtra just by installing said sound deadening. You can really feel the additional mass especially from the front doors. Not good when the N16 is already quite a porker. This is what is preventing me from installing yet another layer of sound deadening to the front doors as I'm still getting the occasional rattling sound during heavy bass. Unfortunately this is a compromise one has to accept for a quieter ride and the opportunity to enjoy his or her ICE more. So who's going to be the first to develop lightweight sound deadening materials?