Starting to tidy up a few loose ends
 

Well after doing nothing at all on the car since I got it on the road last May despite having a list of odds and sods to finish off it is now time I stopped just driving around in it and got my arse into gear and sorted them out. Most things will be straight forward (idle valve, finish off the trim, final mapping session etc.) but the one area I am not looking forward to is trying to get some sound deadening around the cabin without pulling all the carpet/trim off (I wish Phantom had told me to sound proof the bulkhead)
A few of the sources will be easy - door cappings for instance ratle slightly beacause I painted them instead of triming them. Any sugestions of other easy fixes? Do the insides of the doors benefit from any sound deadening? Any ideas for quietening the road noise from the bulkhead without taking the dash out?
Does the felt underlay and carpet need sound deadening underneath or is it o.k. on it's own?

I guess the easy answer is say to stick it everywhere, if you're not too worried about adding weight.

I even added it to my cobra :der: but it does help with drumming noises and generally gives the car a more 'put together' feel which I guess is quite important in a car like the Phantom. Not sure what is the best material nowadays though.

John

It's more a question of the most effective places without having to undo what's already there if possible.

Norman did warn me to put plenty on both bulkheads, he also mentioned that putting it on the back of the dash is also very effective.
As you've probably seen on my site I just put it everywhere, even on the roof! I doubled up with acoustic foam in some areas. I think inside the doors is the only place I didn't deaden and I don't seem to be suffering from it, maybe the trim with its foam backing does a good job?

Wish Norman had told me when I was in a position to slap some on the bulkheads. I supose I might have been rushing the last bits in order to get it on the road ready for Stoneleigh.
Might take the seats out and lay on the floor on my back and see if I can manage to get stuff far enough up behind the dash.

Windscreen wipers - wasn't happy with the original parking position. Playing around with various new wiper arms this weekend the ones from a Honda Accord were quite promising but slightly too long so tried bending and tweeking the ones I already had (pretty sure they were the ones off the Legend). I have now managed to get the arms to park below the bonnet! Only problem is I have snapped off one of the lugs on the centre spindle housing and the outer spindle arm needs to be shortened to 47.5mm rather than 56.5mm for the drivers side wiper to clear the part of the windscreen you actually look out of.
Playing around with the idle screw I can now get the car to start from cold and idle at 1200 rpm cold dropping to 1000rpm warm - another result!
Checking over the maximum logging data in the dash it seems like my red line is set at 7600 rpm (very abrupt cut off) and maximum boost is 10 psi which would give something in the region of 335 - 350 bhp. Might try to get that up to 12 psi in the future.

On a related topic, I've fitted aero conversion wipers, I've made up new spray bars out of carefully drilled brake pipe that is attached to the underneath of the arms

http://www.ricola.co.uk/images/gtr_i...ero_wipers.JPG http://www.ricola.co.uk/images/gtr_i...sher_pipes.JPG

Rich

Ken,
Have a look at this stuff:

http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/seco...26f67756381f07

I've used it on my engine cover, and it made a big difference to how the panel sounds when you tap it now.
I'll also be painting it on underneath and in the wheel arches.

All the stuff I used was second skin, that sludge stuff worked really well on the engine cover and engine side of the bulkhead..

So are the stick on sheets or the sludge stuff better? The web site for the spray/paint on stuff says not to coat plastic so have you had any problems on the fibreglass? I could get a good thick coat of that stuff all up inside the wheel arches and the lower part of the bulkhead, inside the doors and the underside of the floor. Couldn't get up the rear bulkhead coz' of the ally fire wall on the back of the chassis. Not sure I'm getting too much noise through there anyway and I still want to hear the engine screaming away in the background.

Like the look of the aero wipers Rich, another little mod to put on the list.

If you can use sheets use them as it is much easier to apply for similar results. Sludge is great for awkward surfaces and can be applied relatively thickly, don't go mad or it will drip very slowly. You can sand it down after it has gone off, some people use it as a kind of filler for sculpting door panels and deadening them at the same time. I had no problems with it sticking to fibreglass... Using it for wheel arches sounds like a good idea, but maybe not so important now I have the wheelarch liners?
The wipers are 19" versions and were off ebay, only £5 each! Extremely close call with that length and will probably be different depending on how your arms end up.
Rich

Another thing that will cut down a lot of road noise would be to stuff the underdash with acoustic foam or wadding, and then create a panel to close the bottom of the dash off from the footwell. It certainly helped a bit on mine.
As for the sheet vs sludge, use both, sheet first where you can, then coat the hole lot in sludge, use it as underseal, from what i remember it will spray ok from a shultz gun too.

Finally happy with the windscreen wipers. Got a new spindle holder and shortened the pivot arm but the sweep was way too much - sorted by making up a new link arm from the centre pivot to the outer pivot but making it 10mm longer. Tried them out in the rain today and they work fine.

Think I will get some of those aero blades as they look a lot better.

I have also got some new spindle housings on order in stainless steel just in case I managed to snap any more lugs off the ally ones.