Hello, Everyone it has been a long time since Ive been here. I still have my Ls430 and stopped playing with it. I figured new year I would refresh everything. I am planning on have my front bumper and lip kit resprayed and repaired. I am going to refoam my subwoofer and repair my telescoping steering wheel as well since it stopped working. I was debating on sound deadening some parts of the car to see if it will be an quieter. Planning on using some dynamat or something along those lines on the 4 doors, trunk, trunk lid, deck where subwoofer is, and possibly under and behind the rear seats since I am going to have to pull them off to reach the subwoofer anyway. I can get my hand on 75 square feet for a decent price, not sure if that is enough. Do you guys think it would help? I am on 20 inch wheels and lowered, so I do have a bit more noise than a stock LS. Thanks

 

I'm interested in what people have done with sound deadening materials also. Especially what brand they used, and if there was any off-gassing from the materials.

 

The stock LS430 is of course quite insulated from noise however as you mentioned your car being lowered, tire noise must be substantial. I'd work on the wheel well areas in your scenario. The passenger compartment from factory is well done, but over time and with your particular car, it might be helped with additional sound proofing as for most older cars. Good luck.

 

I did read up on that and some have mentioned of a smell emanating from the sound deadening material. What I am looking at in particular is fatmax rattle trap. is it 80 mil thick in comparison to the standard 50 mil. And seems to have great reviews on amazon. I am buying from another source though. There are quite a bit of brands and names that come up though such as raammat, dynamat, b-quiet, even supposedly some flashing material from your local home depot or lowes call peel and seal.

 

Yes I can agree the LS is insulated very well. Do you know if the wheel wells can be reached from behind rear seats on from the trunk? I am hoping to cover the wheel wells and see if that helps. That is one of the cons driving on bigger and wider wheels is the noise and ride comfort. I think I am going to give it a shot. May not take pics but will give a review afterwards perhaps. I can order everything and knock everything out on a weekend hopefully. I am waiting for the weather to warm up a bit. I can only imagine a dead silent LS and its supposed to increase the quality of the sound from the speakers as well.

 

Just a thought man why dont you take the rear seat and decklid out and just sounddeaden them that would be much easier than taking apart the whole trunk, it might work better as well.

 

Good luck.

 

Yes I had mentioned I was going to do that already. But I wanted to do the trunk also because I have 2 8 inch subs in the trunk and I know it rattles back there when I turn up volume a bit.

 

A few links to sound dampening, deadening, attenuating and vibration reduction projects employed on an LS400

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls-1st-and-2nd-gen-1990-2000/825403-sound-dampening-ls400-door-panels.html


https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls-1st-and-2nd-gen-1990-2000/868259-1990-2000-ls400-intake-noise-reduction.html

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls-1st-and-2nd-gen-1990-2000/807728-lead-foot.html

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls-1st-and-2nd-gen-1990-2000/872815-air-filter-housing-reducing-intake-noise.html

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls-1st-and-2nd-gen-1990-2000/831939-accelerator-rod-and-pivot-slop.html

 

Did my 04 LS430 and my LX470 Worlds of Difference! Driving it side by side to my wifes 03 UL430, you really notice it.
Did the doors, took the seats and carpet out and lined the tub. Used Dynamat only in the doors, then dynamat topped with open and closed cell foams. Didnt do the roof, appeared to be too involved.
Would highly recommend it.

 

A few days ago put some 80 mil Fatmat under the rear seats, panel behind the rear seats and rear deck. I had everything apart to install coilovers, so It was a good time to get that part of the car done. It is asphalt based, so there was a strong smell from the box but I couldn't smell anything after it was installed and I put everything back. It is also very sticky compared to the Stinger Roadkill and GT Mat I have used in the past. It's also not as sharp as the reviews lead you to believe but I also don't have girly hands.
​​​​​​
I didn't notice a difference in road noise but that's not what those particular products are meant for. They are made to add mass to a panel to reduce vibration. To reduce road noise, products like Dynamat Dynaliner are a better choice. If you look at what Lexus put in our cars behind the rear seat, they used a rubber "sheet" if you will that has kind of a shredded cloth material glued to it. That is what reduces the road noise. On the floor plan under the seat there are a couple squares which are similar to Dynamat without the aluminium top layer. That is to reduce vibration.

My plan is to add more Fatmat throughout the car because I will be adding a subwoofer or two. But I will also be adding something like Dynaliner or the equivalent from Stinger on places like the doors and trunk floor where there is a lot of noise introduced into the cabin. Doing the floorboard and roof would be ideal but too much of a pain, so I will likely not go that far with it.

 

You are right about the original dampening and sound reduction. All cars have some sort of dampening and sound reduction from factory. I have ordered all the materials already. Waiting for them to come in now. I did plenty of research on car audio forums before attempting and ordering. I'm only planning to do it once and only once. So I might as well strip whole car. I looked up how to strip whole interior and looked on eBay for used carpets, headliners, etc to have an idea of where to pry or what needs to come off etc. Estimate about 2-3 days. Materials alone ran almost 700 bucks. That is 75 sq ft of the fatmat rattle trap dampener. Only about 25% of area requires the dampening from what I've read, anymore the results may be very insignificant and pointless. I ordered 1/8 ensolite foam to lay on top of the whole floor (double layer over foot areas to help with compression), and line over rear seats, Trunk, doors. And the most expensive is the mass loaded vinyl aka mlv which is the sound proofing material. Mass is what blocks out sound. This material is about 1lb per sq ft which is very heavy. The mlv is the final.layer that goes on top of the foam, using the foam as a decoupler. All seams, gaps must be fully sealed to get full sound proofing. The roof I am just going to put some fatmat and line with some thermal insulation jute material I found at local home Depot, called ultratouch radiant insulation. The insulation can also be stuffed in nooks and crannies, behind panels, etc. There are also minor things that add up such as adhesives, Velcro, tapes, cleaning supplies, etc. I expect my car to be super quiet and barely hear anything besides probably wind noise after I complete this project. I measured roughly 140 sq ft to do the car but I ordered a bit extra of everything in materials. I estimate about 150lbs will be added to the weight of the car. But it should feel super solid afterwards. A one stop great source of information if anyone is interested in sound deadening and the proper way to do it can be read here at https://www.sounddeadenershowdown.com plenty of members on audio forums constantly bring him up. He provides information on the materials, tutorial how to do parts of the car, and even sell the materials himself although I sourced everything from different sellers. If this goes well, my father is waiting for me to do his gtr next since that car is super loud and noisy.

 

I wonder if anyone have done anything to the front wheel wells, noticed the rear wells are covered with felt/carpet type of material, but not the front.
Noticed some newer Lexus cars now have felt/carpet wheel wells for all 4 wheels.

Recently I have added some felt tape against the door's weather strip and can really notice the road noise reduction,
our door seals/weather strips are more than 10 years old and have surely lost some elasticity.

 

I did it to my subwoofer deck as well as the trunk and it made a huge difference.