Deadening

Foreword:
It’s always advisable to apply some type of sound absorption or anti-resonance material when performing an audio installation. These type of products which can come in liquid or mat form, help reduce resonance that is induced by a now more powerful stereo system. This not only improves the sound quality, but also cuts down on road noise, and keeps the sound inside the vehicle rather than being heard from the outside.

Description:
After a little research, I decided to go with B-Quiet’s Extreme sound deadener mat. It was the most economical when buying large quantities and each order also included a roller. For the Titan, I ordered and completely used 200sq ft, which came in 50sq ft rolls. This allowed me to cover the floor, doors, rear wall, and B and C pillars. This mat is a 45mil thick composite mat which consists of rubberized asphalt with an aluminum constraining layer. While there are thicker mats available, I was planning to double, triple, and even quadruple the coverage in certain spots.

Installation:
Basic: As you can imagine, this part of the audio installation is easily the most time consuming and laborious. In order to do a proper installation, nearly everything from the interior must be removed. My truck was completely empty save for the dash, headliner, and the upper B pillars. In order for the mat to properly adhere to the vehicle, it must be clean. So I spent a good deal of time vacuuming and cleaning with solvents. The adhesive on this mat is extremely tacky, so it often adheres itself to unintended spots of the truck.

This is the rear of the cabin with all of the interior removed. There’s one small strip of factory mat along the center of the wall. You probably noticed that I covered the cabin vent with mat. I later removed a portion of that, as it made it difficult to close the doors and I had poor ventilation with it sealed up.

Doors: The doors took the most time since they need a good deal of mat and are a pretty constrained space to work in. I found that the best method was to cut multiple small sections of mat, rather than try to work with a few large ones. The steps are to mat the outside wall, then the inner side, then seal up the entire door.

This is the driver’s door. It will be completely sealed up except for the opening for the speaker. The masking tape is just temporarily used to hold the switches and wires in place.

Floor, Rear Wall, and Pillars: With everything out of the interior, the floor wasn’t too difficult. I layed extra layers beneath the future location of the sub enclosure. The floor was completely covered from the rear wall up to the fire wall. The only spot I didn’t bother with was under the airbag computer, because I didn’t want to mess with removing it. The rear wall was completely covered as well. The rollers worked real well on the floor and wall to push and stretch the mat into the ridges in the body. I covered most of the C pillar since I had all the plastic removed. I only covered the B pillar from the floor up to the upper plastic material, because I never removed it. I placed mat through any openings in the interior sheet metal that I could as well.

This shows the floor after the rear wall has been completed and the amp rack is installed.

Miscellaneous: Although the large majority of mat was used on the sheet metal of the truck, I used all that was left over on various plastic parts. I lined the inside of the center console with a good bit of it. I also covered the back side of the rear plastic door panels. If you haven’t noticed yet, the Titan’s front doors are covered in a foam/rubber type of finish, where the rears are just bare plastic.

Tags: sound deadining