Road Noise on 981 Cayman

[bcr5784]

As has been mentioned on this forum before, go over a resurfaced road and the din from loose chippings is horrendous however slowly you go. Likewise on some course surfaces road roar can completely drown all other noises (in the UK particularly, far less of an issue on the continent). Tyres (19" PZEROs) are part of the problem, but I suspect sound insulation is more of an issue.

Has anyone tried/found solutions?

[etk]

Stick your foot down and drown it out with engine noise?

[PR36]

bcr5784 said:

As has been mentioned on this forum before, go over a resurfaced road and the din from loose chippings is horrendous however slowly you go. Likewise on some course surfaces road roar can completely drown all other noises (in the UK particularly, far less of an issue on the continent). Tyres (19" PZEROs) are part of the problem, but I suspect sound insulation is more of an issue.

Has anyone tried/found solutions?

Funny you should mention. Last weekend i stripped out the front interior of my 987 to put some sound insulation. My car is running mpss tyres and a boat load of other mods (exhaust, camber, firmer bushings etc etc) which added up make the tyre roar truly painful for me so i had to do something about it. If the 981 is anything like the 987.1 you will be shocked at what little sound proofing is in the front cabin, basically nothing. When you strip it back the bare shell is underneath you only have to tap a knuckle on it and boooiiiiinnnngggg the body acts like a drum. So i contacted a company called the sound deadening shop and they advised 2 part treatment. First a vibration dampening material that you apply to the key areas, wheel wells etc and you only have to do 50pct coverage. Then a sound barrier that you apply over the top. Because the sound barrier matting is so heavy i decided to fit the vibration damper to 50pct of the front cabin and boot area and then just put the matting in the cabin floor area. Again when i came to the boot area it was shocking how resonant the body shell area was behind the engine and how much of it was booming. This has been a great improvement although some front tyre roar is still annoying me so will attack the front boot next.

[bcr5784]

PR36 said:

Funny you should mention. Last weekend i stripped out the front interior of my 987 to put some sound insulation. My car is running mpss tyres and a boat load of other mods (exhaust, camber, firmer bushings etc etc) which added up make the tyre roar truly painful for me so i had to do something about it. If the 981 is anything like the 987.1 you will be shocked at what little sound proofing is in the front cabin, basically nothing. When you strip it back the bare shell is underneath you only have to tap a knuckle on it and boooiiiiinnnngggg the body acts like a drum. So i contacted a company called the sound deadening shop and they advised 2 part treatment. First a vibration dampening material that you apply to the key areas, wheel wells etc and you only have to do 50pct coverage. Then a sound barrier that you apply over the top. Because the sound barrier matting is so heavy i decided to fit the vibration damper to 50pct of the front cabin and boot area and then just put the matting in the cabin floor area. Again when i came to the boot area it was shocking how resonant the body shell area was behind the engine and how much of it was booming. This has been a great improvement although some front tyre roar is still annoying me so will attack the front boot next.

Thanks for that - very helpful. The major culprit on mine is the rear, so suspect the firmer bushing may be causing quite a bit of your issue. However, sounds like the same route will work for both. I did wonder whether underseal in wheelarch might be another possibility.

I did a bit of investigation. A quick look suggests there is a reasonable amount of sound proof matting under (attached to) the carpet - about half an inch, but not, for the most part, in contact with the rear wheel arch, but is at the front. Tapping the wheel arch does produce a boooiiiiinnnngggg (not sure if I got the spelling right there) so panel damping does look a promising route. I did find someone who found underseal did work well too (not on a Porsche), so I may try that route too, my feeling is that may work well for stone chipping noise.

Edited by bcr5784 on Friday 25th September 11:33

[Klippie]

The tyres don't help either...when my 987 was runnig P-Zero's it was very noisey now its runnig PS2's its just noisey, a noticeable difference none the less.

[hondansx]

Bit of a Porsche 'thing' really. Was surprised what a din the 997 made when i first got one compared to other modern cars.

The new cars are much better for this, but as widely reported, they are generally much more sanitised.

[PR36]

bcr5784 said:

Thanks for that - very helpful. The major culprit on mine is the rear, so suspect the firmer bushing may be causing quite a bit of your issue. However, sounds like the same route will work for both. I did wonder whether underseal in wheelarch might be another possibility.

I did a bit of investigation. A quick look suggests there is a reasonable amount of sound proof matting under (attached to) the carpet - about half an inch, but not, for the most part, in contact with the rear wheel arch, but is at the front. Tapping the wheel arch does produce a boooiiiiinnnngggg (not sure if I got the spelling right there) so panel damping does look a promising route. I did find someone who found underseal did work well too (not on a Porsche), so I may try that route too, my feeling is that may work well for stone chipping noise.

Edited by bcr5784 on Friday 25th September 11:33

On the 987.1 the sound proofing there is, is basically some foam but it looks as much designed for the piece of carpet/trim to fit where it does as much to barrier any sound. If your issue is the rear it may be worth removing the carpet from the rear boot floorplan and have a look at the body shell right there. On my car it was a big piece of undamped body shell and I covered it in dampener material, also the engine cover is another area where I applied the damping material and these are areas very easy to get to so wont take much effort to experiment. I may have some spare damping and matting left over if you were interested.

[bcr5784]

Klippie said:

The tyres don't help either...when my 987 was runnig P-Zero's it was very noisey now its runnig PS2's its just noisey, a noticeable difference none the less.

Looking at official noise figures for tyres it looks like the quietest tyres are around 2db better than the worst (Pzeros) for 19" (18s are a bit better, 20s a bit worse). As you say, not huge - but certainly worth having if there are no other downsides.

The guy who used underseal http://www.zerotohundred.com/2013/diy-soundproofin... found a 4db improvement from just the front arches - but different car so you can't read too much into that.

[bcr5784]

PR36 said:

On the 987.1 the sound proofing there is, is basically some foam but it looks as much designed for the piece of carpet/trim to fit where it does as much to barrier any sound. If your issue is the rear it may be worth removing the carpet from the rear boot floorplan and have a look at the body shell right there. On my car it was a big piece of undamped body shell and I covered it in dampener material, also the engine cover is another area where I applied the damping material and these are areas very easy to get to so wont take much effort to experiment. I may have some spare damping and matting left over if you were interested.

I'd like to take you up on the material if you are reasonably local - I'm near Buckingham.

[Ozzie Osmond]

hondansx said:

Bit of a Porsche 'thing' really.

I beg to disagree. The 981 Boxsters are astoundingly quiet.

[hondansx]

Ozzie Osmond said:

hondansx said:

Bit of a Porsche 'thing' really.

I beg to disagree. The 981 Boxsters are astoundingly quiet.

Come on Ozzie, i wrote two flippin' sentences - you couldn't read them both?!

To save you time, i wrote

"The new cars are much better for this..."

[Ozzie Osmond]

The point is that Boxster appears to be a lot quieter than Cayman even though it has the convertible roof. This applies to the LATEST cars.

There is reasonable opinion that this is because in the Cayman the engine/wheelarch are inside the hatchback whereas in Boxster they are outside the hood.

[bcr5784]

Ozzie Osmond said:

I beg to disagree. The 981 Boxsters are astoundingly quiet.

I've not compared the Cayman with a Boxster, and you may well have a point about the boot/rear suspension being outside the cab in the Boxster perhaps means that the tyre roar is less intrusive. (Of course if you take the roof down a Boxster is VERY noisy by objective standards - tyre roar, wind noise, or exhaust noise all wear a bit thin on me on long journeys). That said, I think it depends on your benchmark, and how you view and use the car. Compared with an Elise they certainly are VERY quiet. Compared with our family hack - a Nissan Note (diesel) - the Cayman is always the more noisy on the motorway, sometimes much more so. Given that my car is a DD and sometimes does long motorway runs, it's something I'd like to fix/improve if it's not too difficult.

[Ozzie Osmond]

Understood. Sound treatment mats are said to be effective. One of the areas which can be dealt with is above the roof lining although I'd be cautious about ripping that out. Around the hatchback area must be a good place to start.

[PR36]

bcr5784 said:

I'd like to take you up on the material if you are reasonably local - I'm near Buckingham.

I am in London but I had a look I only have 10 sheets of dampening material and 2 sound proofing mats left so I think that would leave you well short. I used about 25 sheets of dampening material and 5 sound proofing mats all in (2.5 sq metre).

[finestjammy]

I drove my Cayaman S 987.2 for nearly 7 hrs straight on Friday. Whilst it is noiser than the mk7 GTD I replaced I didn't find it too bad at all. It does seem very sensitive to changes in surface though. The concrete sections being the worse. I suppose it depends on what you've come from and what your expectations were though.

I found wind and front tyre noise to be really low, like others have said, it seems to be the rear that kicks up all the fuss.

Edited by finestjammy on Monday 28th September 14:08

[ORD]

Buy a 2,000 kg saloon if you cant handle tyre noise, you big girl's blouse!

[huytonman]

I ran a 2006 cayman-S a while back and got rid of it due to the noise on Mway commutes (had to revert to my old motor bike earplugs), my 997 was also loud but tolerable whilst my 981 was a significant improvement (and subjectively quieter that my 991S)- in all cases i was running P-zero's. Ive now gone back to a 987s and maybe im going deaf but its fine to me, noisy of course but tolerable...my discovery is quieter but doesn't quite have the same level of roadholding and handling!

[CEREC1]

Very late reply to an old thread but, as a motorcyclist I find earplugs by far the cheapest, easiest and most effective cure for road noise. And no, it doesn’t drown out the sublime 6 cylinder howl of the engine at high revs.