How to Install Sound Deadener in a Car

• Hand roller: We recommend a smaller roller to get into tighter areas. We sell a wooden one, but have also used rubber rollers we've liked. We prefer not to use metal rollers as they can tear the material.
• Utility Knife: Use the utility blade to cut the material. Keep the blade sharper for longer by cutting on the mats on a piece of cardboard. Have some extra blades handy for a big job.
• Gloves: The thick, annealed foil is sharp on the edges. If you've never installed a sound deadening mat before, definitely wear gloves.
• Denatured Alcohol: Apply to a rag and use to clean metal surfaces prior to installing.

Depending on how precise you want to be, you may also want to create templates or trace with a sharpie and a ruler prior to making any cuts. This is not necessary, as the material is often covered, but can result in a cleaner looking install.

We sell both the utility knife and the wooden hand roller together at a discount in our Sound Deadening Mat Tool Bundle.

We sell our Second Skin sound deadening mat products in easy-to-work-with sheets. If you can measure, peel, and stick you can install Damplifier™ and the twice-as-thick Damplifier Pro™ sound deadening mats. You’ll want to apply pressure with your hand to position the mat, and then use one of our wooden hand rollers to stick it down firmly to the metal surface.

If you're applying a whole sheet, some customers find it easier to peel back a small portion of the release liner at a time and work their way across the panel. For tight areas where space is limited, cut the sheets into smaller pieces to make them easier to work with.

Always remove air bubbles with your hand roller. Besides the quality of the material, the #1 determinant of vibration damping is the quality of adhesion to the application surface. You want the mat to be firmly adhered.

The areas of your car you should soundproof by applying deadener are:

• Doors - This will reduce any rattling panels inside your dar, and often helps a lot with improving the audio quality and performance in your car
• Floor - Applying sound deadening and a sound blocking layer to your floor will reduce noise from entering into your cabin.
• Trunk - If you have a lot of sound coming from tires or speakers in the trunk, applying sound deadening will help.
• Firewall - This helps reduce sound transfer from the engine into your cabin area, as well as stops heat transfer
• Roof - This will help reduce sound coming through your ceiling on rainy days, and will make your overall drive quieter.

Our sound deadening materials can be applied directly to all types of metal. All Damplifier™ sheets use a very strong adhesive, so they can even be applied straight to fiberglass, plastic, and wood surfaces, although those materials don’t tend to vibrate as much as sheet metal or aluminum. You can make a meaningful difference in structural noise to all of your vehicle's metal surfaces: the doors, floor pan, trunk, firewall, hood, and roof. Part of a good truck sound deadening plan includes that back wall too since there's no trunk in a truck.

As far as priority, most sound deadening installs should prioritize the doors, the floor, and the trunk. That means starting all the way up from at the firewall and working your way back (make sure to hit those wheel wells along the way!).

To deaden the metal, you must cover at least 25% of the surface with the Damplifier™ mats. We recommend 60% coverage with a focus on covering all the flat metal panels, because the curved parts of the car tend to be more structurally sound. Another effective strategy is the "checker board approach" where you cut the mats into smaller pieces and apply to the surface in a pattern that looks like a checker board.

Many customers choose to cover as close to 100% of any metal surface as possible, either because they also want to thermally insulate their car, they like the way it looks, or they just want to max out their results while they have the interior of their car on the floor of their garage. Going with 100% coverage as an MLV alternative will give you less results than using the MLV as a sound blocking layer, but will perform better than only 60% coverage

For parts of the car you want to thermally insulate (usually the roof, outer door skins, firewall, and hood), we go for as close to 100% coverage as possible on our own installs. It can be worth it on the floor too if you have a high performance exhaust system or other thermal hot spots.

Second Skin sound deadening mats create a very strong bond with sheet metal; it’s honestly hard to make it NOT stick. To ensure the best bond, we strongly recommend cleaning the metal surface first and then using a hand roller to firmly attach the mat.

Good adhesion without air bubbles is absolutely key if you want to get the best performance. Every pocket of air or poorly adhere sheet means you're sacrificing damping effectiveness.

1. Start by removing the upholstery and carpet from your car. Vacuum the entire area to remove loose debris and dirt. Then clean any greasy spots with denatured alcohol. If you use another solvent or degreaser, you may leave behind a film that will prevent a solid contact surface. Allow the metal to dry.
2. Cut Damplifier mats to the desired size with a sharp utility knife. We recommend wearing gloves because the foil edges are sharp.
3. Peel the wax paper liner from the back of the mat, and adhere the tacky butyl side to the sheet metal. Slowly work the Damplifier onto the panel with a hand roller to ensure it bonds.

If you want to learn more about other soundproofing materials you can use in combination with Damplifier, take a look at our Installation Guide. You can also give us a call and we'll be happy to help out.