Heat and Noise insulation

[Storer]

Hi All

At last I have made a start. I am doing all those lovely holes and rivets at the moment.

Before I progress too far I would like to gather opinions on sound and heat insulation for my GTR. I want to be able to drive longish distances without ear defenders (I would look such a prat with them on). What have others done and has it worked and were there any drawbacks?

Also, heat transfer to the cabin from rad, pipes and engine bay. I have ordered aircon but would like to assist it as much as possible. Your thoughts / experiences please.

I did a search and found some information but I am after the experiences once fitted to try to find the best results.

Paul

[Steve_D]

I fitted large amounts of sound deadening in my car but have not been in many others to say how effective it is.
The majority of the noise in my car is wind noise so maybe my work has been effective.

Every interior alloy panel has sound matt stuck to it. Every cavity caused by double skinning is also stuffed with horse hair matting. The whole of the rear roll cage has been skinned both sides and again sound matt and horse hair stuffed. If you go this route secure the skins to each other using folded brackets and PU sealant without drilling and riveting into the roll cage as this could weaken it.

If long distance driving is your goal then I would recommend carpeting the interior for two reasons.
1. It is a pain to try and keep the alloy panels bright and shiny particularly if it is getting heavy use.
2. A decent quality automotive carpet may be all you need for sound deadening.

I fitted Armaflex pipe insulation and glass/ali foil insulation to all of my cooling pipes where they run through the car body ie the whole length of the side pods. I did the same for the heater pipes.

As an aside I also covered the exposed surfaces of the fuel tanks with glass/ali foil. Not so much for insulation more for looks. It does not readily tarnish and would still look good if I got down to cleaning it. Keeping the car clean is not one of my strong points.

Steve

Edited by Steve_D on Monday 28th December 13:43

[Storer]

Thanks for the reply Steve.

I intend to carpet the interior. There is no way I want to have to polish the interior as well as the exterior!!!!! The stuff the factory used on the Silver demonstrator seems to be fairly hard wearing, looks quite good and is light weight.

Horse hair sound insulation. Next time they clip my wife and daughters horses I'll get them to save some!!!! Sounds a little old fashioned. There must be something better on the market by now or did you want something that was recyclable????

Ted said there was no need for sound proofing but I find this hard to believe. I am double skinning but the chassis tubes must transmit some of the noise into the cabin. The (thick) carpet behind the seats must cut the noise a fair bit.

Heat ingress is likely to be more difficult to solve as you are effectively wrapped in a big heater. It is probably better to ventilate that heat than to confine it but it is probably easier said than done. I may well go down your Armaflex route.

What will you do to customer cars you build or will that be up to the customer?

I will need to spend a few hours reading build sites to find out what others did.

[Steve_D]

Storer said:

.....What will you do to customer cars you build or will that be up to the customer?...

Entirely up to the customer. We will make our recommendations based on how they intend to use the vehicle. Insulation will not be a high priority for a track car where dry sump would. The reverse would be true for a touring car.

Steve

[UltimaForYou]

Steve_D said:

Storer said:

.....What will you do to customer cars you build or will that be up to the customer?...

Entirely up to the customer. We will make our recommendations based on how they intend to use the vehicle. Insulation will not be a high priority for a track car where dry sump would. The reverse would be true for a touring car.

Steve

we'll have a discussion about that steve...
Insulation will be prior than track specs for mine due to the goal I'm looking for.

Just one more question about air vents : is it well "water proof" (on every day use) ?

[Steve_D]

UltimaForYou said:

.......Just one more question about air vents : is it well "water proof" (on every day use) ?

The GTR in general is waterproof.
However

• The 'Helicopter Vents' are not and will allow a trickle of water to run down the inside of the door. You don't have to fit these vents but they can produce a welcome blast of fresh air in the summer.

• The door locks will also allow a little water in which will sit in the bottom of the door. My doors have small drain holes drilled in the bottom. Not many owners store things in the doors so this is not normally an issue. It is possible to dispense with the door locks and use remote door openers.

• The one thing you can't avoid is water sitting on the outside of the door when you open it. The design of the doors means that when the door is opened the water will run off and into the car. If you are out of the car you can wipe it off before opening. I keep a small cloth tucked behind the roll bar so I only have to open the door a little way to retrieve it and wipe the door.

If you are inside the only answer is to arrive very fast so the water is blown off and jump out before it has time to build up.

Steve

[UltimaForYou]

Steve_D said:

UltimaForYou said:

.......Just one more question about air vents : is it well "water proof" (on every day use) ?

The GTR in general is waterproof.
However

• The 'Helicopter Vents' are not and will allow a trickle of water to run down the inside of the door. You don't have to fit these vents but they can produce a welcome blast of fresh air in the summer.

• The door locks will also allow a little water in which will sit in the bottom of the door. My doors have small drain holes drilled in the bottom. Not many owners store things in the doors so this is not normally an issue. It is possible to dispense with the door locks and use remote door openers.

• The one thing you can't avoid is water sitting on the outside of the door when you open it. The design of the doors means that when the door is opened the water will run off and into the car. If you are out of the car you can wipe it off before opening. I keep a small cloth tucked behind the roll bar so I only have to open the door a little way to retrieve it and wipe the door.

Thus, small flows! Nothing very important.
I imagined that he could have more important flows there by driving.

Steve_D said:

If you are inside the only answer is to arrive very fast so the water is blown off and jump out before it has time to build up.

[Supertoadylight]

Just starting the sound deadening adventure and after watching Overhaulin' (my fave ) gonna try Dynamat...

http://www.dynamat.com/

The telly tells me its amazing so it must be true

Joking aside I read about it in kitcar magazine a while back and said it was very good stuff. Might be worth looking at...?

John

[pilbeam_mp62]

Dynamat is the stuff I used - I think it is very good.

See here http://www.jouhar.com/ultima/index_files/Page4379.... for some pics

Regards

[60mph]

I came to the conclusion that the only unpleasant sound entering my car after fitting some sound proofing was an annoying resonance; probrably coming from the exhaust. I have heard of fitting "jetex" silencers in place of the Ultima tailpipes to overcome this. Anyone done this?

Frank

[Storer]

Thanks for the replies guys.

As usual there are a number of methods being used by other builders so I will have to decide on one and just hope it does what I want.

[ROWDYRENAULT]

Sem brand ultra rigid foam between all of the double walled pockets like the floor. Header wrap around the raditor tobes as they transistion down the sides. Gold foil insulation on the fire wall. The first and last are a bit exspensive the gold foil is $20 a square foot. In the end this detail work makes a lot of difference in the enjoyment of the car when your are just putting about. Lee

[MHunter]

Reviving this thread as my Ultima is trying to cook me inside the cabin. The aluminium panel beside my seat (lhd) and the side pod get quite hot to the touch.

I imagine most of the heat transfer into the cabin comes from the coolant pipes running on the sides of the car? It won't be easy to wrap those in insulation now that the car is complete. Won't it also make the cooling system less effective?

[Steve_D]

MHunter said:

Reviving this thread as my Ultima is trying to cook me inside the cabin. The aluminium panel beside my seat (lhd) and the side pod get quite hot to the touch.

I imagine most of the heat transfer into the cabin comes from the coolant pipes running on the sides of the car? It won't be easy to wrap those in insulation now that the car is complete. Won't it also make the cooling system less effective?

I wrapped my pipes at build stage but it will not be possible to do it once built unless you take the body off. As you say it will reduce the cooling efficiency but it's no fun if you and your passenger have become part of the cooling system.
How much of that heat is comming from the heater pipes? If they are hot then perhaps disconnecting them for the summer months would be worth considering.

Steve

[MHunter]

Steve_D said:

I wrapped my pipes at build stage but it will not be possible to do it once built unless you take the body off. As you say it will reduce the cooling efficiency but it's no fun if you and your passenger have become part of the cooling system.
How much of that heat is comming from the heater pipes? If they are hot then perhaps disconnecting them for the summer months would be worth considering.

Steve

I don't have the heater installed. It looks like I'll have to take the body off to fix the problem correctly. Time to start drilling rivets.

[k wright]

Not sure how effective the insulation is when placed in the car but the small foam bullets that are placed in the external auditory canal are extremely effective, weigh nothing and allow all the important noises to make it through.

[ROWDYRENAULT]

once again the thought that wraping the coolant pipes as they pass 4 or 5 inchs from your tail can somehow reduce the cooling efficiency of the car. so with no air passing over the pipes how much heat is pulled off of the pipes? Come on guys, I live in Southren California I have had the car in 110f the car didn't overheat and yes my pipes are wrapped in header wrap. do all that seems reasonable to reduce noise and heat. Lee

[k wright]

I also wrapped the radiator pipes in header insulation and put a thin layer of reflective fiberglass insulation between them and the interior paneling. It works great. Never had any over heating problems. The amount of heat that the car loses in the chassis has to be a tiny amount when compared with that lost at the radiator.

[Stig]

Trouble with lagging the side pipes (as I know to my cost), is that you reduce the cooling efficiency for the engine.

With this in mind, rather than lagging the pipes themselves, insulate the cockpit as well as you can and vent the sidepods to create some airflow through them. It may sound daft, but there's a case to be made for mounting fans in the sidepods to evacuate the hot air which would help things in stationary traffic too.

[cliveg]

Stig said:

Trouble with lagging the side pipes (as I know to my cost), is that you reduce the cooling efficiency for the engine.

With this in mind, rather than lagging the pipes themselves, insulate the cockpit as well as you can and vent the sidepods to create some airflow through them. It may sound daft, but there's a case to be made for mounting fans in the sidepods to evacuate the hot air which would help things in stationary traffic too.

I'm just about to do this. Any thoughts on where best to vent them? I had thought of putting inlet vents ducted from the front clip, and outlet vents under the sidepods just in front of the firewall, or ducting vents to the rear clip, but not sure which would be better or if there are other better options.