ProtegeMaster

Yes indeed, my car now has no interior components; zero. Down to bare metal.

The good news is this is deliberate. A few days ago I finally began my noise control project-- One intended to rid my Protege's infuriatingly annoying rattles and road noise characteristics-- I’ve hated how noisy this car is with the fires of Hell from day one.

I completed the doors several months ago but never had the time to begin the interior, which, suffice to say, is by far the most convoluted, difficult element involved in carrying out such a project.

Hopefully in the next week or two time and weather will allow for completion of the entire venture.

The products I'm using come from B-Quiet -- Brown Bread and L-Comp, and I've begun work on a journal/tutorial cataloging my experience for future posting to the forum.

So come tomorrow early morning, it's to work!

MisterT

That is something I would like to do, but don't have the money nor the patience! How much weight will that add to the car? Also, I heard that if you have a sunroof, it is a little tricky to do around that area, otherwise just hope you don't have left over screws when you put every thing back together!
Good luck. It's supposed to rain all weekend here in Chas., SC, but that is probably good because I am supposed to recover from sx this weekend and next week and not do any thing strenuous. It's been hard. Okay I cheated a little and cleaned the engine bay up some today, but it was really dirty and needed it!

ProtegeMaster

Well, this kind of project is a relentless pain in the ***. For anyone contemplating it, be advised, particularly if you work alone, that it will take you weeks of hard labor (if you're lucky) and a lot of money in materials to do a complete job. Despite what any sound deadening company propaganda will say, this is NOT an easy project, nor is it one that minimizes cost.

Given that I'm a working individual (like most people; be them in school or in their careers), I don't have all day, every day, to work on this project. Based thereon, I've only been able to work on the car after work each evening, and on weekends between other errands/tasks that I have to take care of. I've been at it now for over a month, with my car being out of drivable service for 2 1/2 of those weeks (finally got the front seats back in a couple of weeks ago).

Problems that will delay such a project (as I've experienced):

1. **** weather. I haven't a garage to work in a warm, dry environment, so I'm at the mercy of the weather. If it rains, the show's over with this kind of work. Period. It rained here several times over the course of this project and stopped progress dead. Had no choice. This included key weekend days where I could have made better progress than the measly after work hours I have during the week.

2. Other responsibilities will always get in your way. Family nagging you to do other ****, the need to go to the store, laundry, etc., etc., etc.. It's not possible to work undisturbed, and that will always slow you down.

3. The process of laying down a double layer of (basically) tar on your car's stripped metal interior is tedious, awkward work in many places. It's not a flat surface, and you have to adhere the stuff in many locations that are in tight corners, nooks under panels, etc.. It takes countless HOURS to complete. More realistically, it takes countless WEEKS.

Other realities to note:

It takes hundreds of square feet of material (in my case, Brown Bread ) to cover the doors and floors of your car's interior (including the trunk). This does NOT include the roof and the rear deck if you choose to cover that, nor does it include the roof of the trunk and such.

All of this crap adds immense weight to your car. IMMENSE. Adding up the weight of the double layer of Brown Bread and single layer of L-Comp in the end will approach a weight of 200 lbs. More if you cover the roof. I'm not kidding: You will add a hell of a lot of weight to your car, that's all there is to it.

So all in all, although I've at times enjoyed working on the car, I've lost track of how many hours I've been working on this thing. It's been a massive, massive project, and I've started to get pissed at Mazda for building such a damn noisy car in the first place, thus forcing me to have to undertake this venture. And this comes AFTER they had added their own sound deadening material starting with the 01's. It strikes me as incredible that this car actually used to be even noisier. I'd like to slap someone at Mazda. Hard.

Part of the problem is with the tires, that said. Our Dunlops are surely among the loudest, most irritating tires ever to clad a stock vehicle.

Anyway, I've been piecing together a tutorial from my experience with this project in case anyone else out there wishes to go for it. Again, be warned it's damn hard, seemingly endless work, however.

I'll advise on how it turned out when it's finally all done. Given that Winter is fast approaching and I've run out of Brown Bread (necessitating ordering even MORE-- $$$$ ), I'm not sure I'll be able to finish this crap until next Spring. We'll have to see about that...

RHAGEL

You may want to take that "keeping her simple" off of your signature. I thought about soundproofing but knew that there was too much time involved. I had a 94 626 before and it was almost as noisy as our proteges. The 626 han 205/60/15 goodyear tires and they were noisy as hell.