Anyone install MLV in Mazda 5 door?

[kw_da]

Has anyone tried installing Mass Loaded Vinyl in their Mazda 5 front doors. I'm thinking about it, but wasn't sure if I should try to put the MLV between the plastic inner skin and the door, or between the panel and the plastic inner skin. Both of the locations appear to be a pain to do. There are a lot of cables, etc between the plastic inner skin and the door. The plastic inner skin appears to be a pain to fully remove as there are a lot of wiring that is attached to the plastic skin. On the other hand, the interface between the door panel and plastic inner skin is not very flat, which would make it difficult to hang MLV on it.

I'm trying to get a bit more noise reduction from the outside. My understanding is the MLV + decoupling foam is the best way to do this. I've already put Fatmat on the outer skin of the door.

 

[Marc D]

Has anyone tried installing Mass Loaded Vinyl in their Mazda 5 front doors. I'm thinking about it, but wasn't sure if I should try to put the MLV between the plastic inner skin and the door, or between the panel and the plastic inner skin. Both of the locations appear to be a pain to do. There are a lot of cables, etc between the plastic inner skin and the door. The plastic inner skin appears to be a pain to fully remove as there are a lot of wiring that is attached to the plastic skin. On the other hand, the interface between the door panel and plastic inner skin is not very flat, which would make it difficult to hang MLV on it.

I'm trying to get a bit more noise reduction from the outside. My understanding is the MLV + decoupling foam is the best way to do this. I've already put Fatmat on the outer skin of the door.

I have. It's a pain in the ass, especially since the MLV does not conform to the door easily. You're most likely going to have to remove the "acoustic" dampeners in the door panel themselves. I just drilled them off and chucked them.

I only added MLV between the door panel and the skeleton of the door (On top of CLD and CCF). On the inside, I just used CLD tiles (Alpha damp) and CCF ensolite (from RAAMaudio). The layers were too thick, some areas of the door panel don't fasten properly, but it doesnt vibrate because I added CLD tiles to the panel itself as well.

I think MLV doesn't make too much of a difference on doors, but more on throughout the car (espeically the roof and the floor). If youre going to put MLV on the doors, youre going to have to cut up sections and paste them together using vinyl tape or HH-66 vinyl cement (which is what I used).


Oh BTW, MLV weighs a HUGE amount. 1 lbs per sq ft. I have MLV layered throughout my entire car so acceleration suffers. But the car is manual transmission so it helps a lot.

 

[kw_da]

Thanks for the feedback on your experience. I may just add MLV to the spare tire/trunk area. Do you think that's the best return for the effort? It must have been a pain to add MLV to the roof, how did you attach it? I"ve haven't seen any pictures of it added to the roof area on any cars. How thick was the CCF ensolite you added?

 

[JPX]

My take is that doors and floors are the biggest gain. In my case, I have worked with b-quiet which at the time was cheaper than Dynamat.

Roof will necessitate removing the headliner which I am very adverse to doing.....especially since I don't have a roof rack or other noise contributors up there.

Just getting some material on the insides of the door skins made a huge difference. Besides, the doors feel so satisfyingly solid when you rap your knuckles on the outside of the door metal as opposed to the tin-can bang. I also added carpet padding on the interior door panels on my Subaru (cheapo alternative to ensolite) - this helped some more, but caused problems refitting the panels back onto the doors. I didn't bother with doing the metal where the interior door panel goes - although my friend went for it on both the door skin and the interior door panel - I couldn't tell the difference with the extra layer.

By far the floor at the rear of the Mazda5 is the big ringer. Lots of metal - thin metal no less - and lots of flat surfaces. Sticking material on top of the spare tire well and the flat surfaces will make a very big difference. Though the rear passengers may benefit from the noise reduction than you as the driver would. Still totally ambient noise level improvement is a big gain. If you can get to the top of the fender wells, that also will help - though ensolite/padding may be more effective if the fender panel already doesn't "ring".

For the rest of the floor, you have to really want to go the distance. Pulling out the seats and the carpet to get underneath is a lot of work, and unless you are doing a competition grade audio space, may not be worth the hassle vs. the gain. Then again, Mazda's penchant for cheapo-thin carpet material may warrant the effort it install ensolite and or stick-on material to get some additional noise reduction.

And Marc D is absolutely right, this stuff is HEAVY. So if you do roof and all of the floor, the weight is a significant factor. Putting only what you really need to disturb the resonant frequency of the panels can help minimize the added weight and simplify the install.

 

[Marc D]

I attached it to the roof the same way I attached it to the door and trunk. CLD ---> CCF ---> MLV. The MLV is held up with the HH-66 i was talkign about in the last post. youll need ALOT of this stuff.

BTW, adding MLV to the trunk area only is not really going to help in terms of blocking out the noise. MLV needs to be sealed, and continuous throughout. Thats the biggest problem with it, and thats why it gets real heavy, real fast.