As I’ve been driving my car more I find myself slightly irritated by cabin noise.  It’s primarily engine/exhaust noise that I believe is coming in through the rear bulkhead.  It’s no surprise really, the engine is about a foot behind your head and the total exhaust from manifold to tips is about 3 feet long.  I plan to experiment by placing some towels or blankets along the rear bulkhead to see if adding some soft materials back there will help quiet down cabin echo.  Knowing what I know now, I may have gone the direction of flocking everything – the dash, door panels, and rear bulkhead.  Having everything either in raw fiberglass or carbon makes for great reflective surfaces – so whatever sound gets into the cabin just keeps bouncing around.  Irritating.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words so I thought a few photos of where and what I used for sound and heat blockers would be useful.  These images are spread throughout the build blog but having it all in one place is probably more useful.  I’ll say that the few days I drove around in 90-100F temps (and barely/non-functional AC) weren’t terrible, at least as far as heat intrusion.  My tub and dash remained cool and never got heat soaked to the point of feeling warm/hot.  I attribute this to all the Thermal Block, Luxury Liner Pro, and Heat Wave Pro I used throughout the build.  Adding tint to the windows was also a big step toward UV relief.  There’s currently no means to get fresh air into the cabin while driving so the occasional opening of the door to let fresh air in is helpful.  I’m debating whether I want to install some pop-up vents in each window or get a second set of 2-piece windows to install.  It’s unlikely I’ll be able to convince Ryan to take another stab at tinting a second set!

In the following photos the abbreviations represent:

• D/P – either Damplifier and/or Damplifier Pro
• TB – Thermal Block
• LLP – Luxury Liner Pro
• HWP – Heat Wave Pro
• MZ – Mega’Zorbe

Not shown is my insulated radiator discharge duct.  All air passing through the radiator is diverted outside of the car and dumps just forward of the windshield.  This is critical in ensuring the front area of the footbox doesn’t get hot due to exiting radiator air.

In an earlier post I discussed making some forward closeout panels (wheel well shields in post #29) which cover the gap between the spider and side aluminum extension coming off the chassis.  I haven’t gotten around to installing this yet and I’ve decided to hold off on doing so until I can do more driving in summer temps.  As it is, I don’t find noise or heat to be an issue – in fact, keeping them open may be contributing to keeping the side pods cooler.  There doesn’t seem to be an issue with wind noise rushing through the side pod either.  I suspect all the heat and noise blockers I added to my vertical closeout panel (between the tub and side rail) are sufficient for keeping this area of the car in check.