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Thread: Wheel well material advice?

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    Wheel well material advice?

    https://bksv.com/media/doc/bn1827.pdf

    I was reading this paper on wheel well sound absorption and i was wondering if any of you know have any idea what materials they used. The paper says "The material selected for the wheel liner was a nonwoven material made from polyester fibers" but like that is kind of a wide variety of materials and from a quick google search, i cant actually find any for sale. I think i'd like to try my hand at something similar in my tire wells. Some fiberglass wheel wells with an adsorption material behind it maybe make a mlv outer layer.

    Any ideas on a good material? Would a Material/Mlv/material sandwhich be more effective?

    These look workable. https://www.amazon.com/BXI-Sound-Abs.../dp/B07C31RYNN

    also this list looks useful. http://johnlsayers.com/Stuff/AbsorptionCoefficients.htm

    Thoughts?

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    DIYMA Janitor SkizeR's Avatar
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    Re: Wheel well material advice?

    Solid chance that its Thinsulate

    Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

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    Re: Wheel well material advice?

    Quote Originally Posted by SkizeR View Post
    Solid chance that its Thinsulate

    Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk
    Probable. I hadn't thought of that. Thinsulate being kinda fluffy seems like it would be a bit of a bitch to form something around. I suppose i could glue thinsulate to some Mlv on the metal side, so it'd be Metal-thinsulate-mlv. Then make an mlv(thinsulate lined) barrier around the wheel well and somehow attach it to the metal, and then make a fiberglass layer over the mlv that so its Metal-thinsulate-mlv-thin fiberglass. Paint it black and have a homemade but well made acoustic barrier in my wheel well.

    Thoughts?

    I guess im asking, would something thick and fairly easy to curve around things like felt be a better option than fluffy thinsulate?

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    Wave Shepherd - aka Jazzi Justin Zazzi's Avatar
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    Re: Wheel well material advice?

    I didn't see clues for a specific material or product. The link you have for absorbing materials is a great start. If you want to try it, aim for one that is hydrophobic (won't absorb water) and then you'll need a plan to shape it and make it hold the shape. That article mentions significant fabrication and custom work to turn the material into custom shapes and so on.

    The article also mentions if the tire noise is masked by wind or engine noise then the sound treatments don't do much. Are your tires really super noisy?

    Kinda related: from day one I had tons of road noise coming into my car from the floor and I assume the wheel wells so I removed the seats and carpet and made a bathtub shape out of MLV to act as a sound barrier. It was a ton of work but it works great and I don't have to worry about the weather-proof reliability of putting something in the wheel wells.
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    Re: Wheel well material advice?

    Quote Originally Posted by Justin Zazzi View Post
    I didn't see clues for a specific material or product. The link you have for absorbing materials is a great start. If you want to try it, aim for one that is hydrophobic (won't absorb water) and then you'll need a plan to shape it and make it hold the shape. That article mentions significant fabrication and custom work to turn the material into custom shapes and so on.

    The article also mentions if the tire noise is masked by wind or engine noise then the sound treatments don't do much. Are your tires really super noisy?

    Kinda related: from day one I had tons of road noise coming into my car from the floor and I assume the wheel wells so I removed the seats and carpet and made a bathtub shape out of MLV to act as a sound barrier. It was a ton of work but it works great and I don't have to worry about the weather-proof reliability of putting something in the wheel wells.
    So i just bought a car (2011 Scion Tc) that was rebuilt pretty substantially. It has a totaled reconstruction title. Both of the front plastic wheel well covers are gone and i have a shitload of mlv left from a previous install. So i kinda figured..i certainly have the time and materials. So why not?

    Any recommendations of a hydrophobic material? Perhaps melamine foam sheets?
    Last edited by Jscoyne2; 05-11-2020 at 02:21 AM.

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    Re: Wheel well material advice?

    Some quiet/lux cars have it. Normally it's on the rear wheel wells. Some people call it fabric, some call it felt, and some call it a big patch of hairy stuff. All are synthetic material. Maybe can take a sneak peek at some quiet/lux cars in the parking lot. The idea is the little road pebbles hit the thin hairy patch and not make too much noise. The rest of the liner helps to reduce the noise.

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    Noob Truthunter's Avatar
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    Re: Wheel well material advice?

    Quote Originally Posted by Jscoyne2 View Post
    So i just bought a car (2011 Scion Tc) that was rebuilt pretty substantially. It has a totaled reconstruction title. Both of the front plastic wheel well covers are gone and i have a shitload of mlv left from a previous install. So i kinda figured..i certainly have the time and materials. So why not?

    Any recommendations of a hydrophobic material? Perhaps melamine foam sheets?
    Mineral wool such as Roxul is one option - It's available in bats that likely can be purchased in your local bigbox hardware store or it also comes in formed sheets in different thicknesses & densities.

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    Re: Wheel well material advice?

    Any ideas on how to mount mlv to wheel well effectively? It coming off while driving down the road would be a very bad thing.

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    Re: Wheel well material advice?

    Quote Originally Posted by SkizeR View Post
    Solid chance that its Thinsulate

    Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk
    Thinking either Mega Zorbe Hydrophobic foam or 600l Thinsulate. Thoughts?

    Also..What is a linear foot when it comes to ordering? I can get 5 linear feet of thinsulate but im not sure what that means.

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    Re: Wheel well material advice?

    Quote Originally Posted by Jscoyne2 View Post

    Also..What is a linear foot when it comes to ordering? I can get 5 linear feet of thinsulate but im not sure what that means.
    Pretty sure it means that it would be a 5 foot length at whatever the width of the bolt (roll of material) is.

    So if the bolt is for example 36" wide (made up figure) and you ordered 5 linear feet it would be a 3' x 5' piece of material

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