Owners of Corvette C7 Z06 continue to set new records in ignorance and stupidity

Ignorance and stupidity of people buying the new Corvette C7 Stingray and C7 Z06 is a well established fact already but in case anyone may be still in doubt, the real life examples of this situation continue to literally pour in, giving these cars a very dubious distinction of being the quintessential idiot magnets.

Although ignorance and stupidity are quite common among car enthusiasts in general, the owners of the newest Corvettes tend to excel here, perhaps setting new bar for others NOT TO FOLLOW.

Here is an example that is way up there, with the tools installing extra supercharger cooling tanks and undersized supercharger pulleys.  Certainly, another great explanation why the latest so called "certified supercar" obscene weight is not concern to the buyers, without any need for +General Motors  and +Tadge Juechter to spew extra bullshit why heavy is good..

The subject of automotive sound deadening has been around for a very long time, very popular among self appointed car AUDIOPHILES but also not uncommon among the general car enthusiast circles.  As with anything else, the sound deadening industry and retailers carry only partial blame here, after all, they are out there to make money and the dumber the customers are, the higher profits there will be.

Typical automotive enthusiasts, especially those with audio bug, typically fail to understand the difference between noise barriers and vibration dampeners and rely on their "trusted retailers and installers" to present them with solutions that supposedly will cure their problems.

What happens next goes beyond the usual comedy, as demonstrated by this example.   Clearly, neither the installers or the car owners have a faintest trace of a clue what to do and instead, proceed with the super idiotic solution that not only does not take care of anything but in the process, adds substantial amount of dead weight to the car that is already heavy (we are talking here about hundred pounds EXTRA).

First of all, not all noises are created equal and with a car that uses very light body panels, it is especially crucial to understand the difference.

Newest Corvettes are just like the old ones, lots of road noise, creeks and other noises, readily transmitted to the interior of the car.  The main source of the noise is none other but the floor of the car, it is very thin and outright flimsy, ironically enough, for the weight savings.  The other area of road noise are the wheel wells, with very little done regarding stopping the road noise entering from those areas.  Apparently GM actually realizes the road issue and the newest Corvettes have been equipped with a half ass carpeting job installed on the well liners, at least trying to reduce the noise.

And here it is, an owner with a desire to quiet down his car and maybe make his sound system perform better?  Hmmm...

As already mentioned, before attempting a fix, the nature of the problem must be understood, separating the road noise related issues from audio related considerations.  If the owner and the shop understood this part, they would quickly realize that to combat road noise, a SOUND BARRIER approach must be taken, using materials to design as sound barrier.  These materials typically include a barrier layer encapsulated between sheets of aluminum foil or another dense media, performing in essence as multi-pane windows.  Typically, these types of barriers function not only as noise barrier but also as heat barriers as well, tending to be quite effective on both accounts.  As a bonus, since air is the actual noise barrier within these materials, they tend to be extremely light.

The sound barrier functions completely differently from another group of materials, commonly called sound deadeners/dampeners.  The sound deadeners use two principals to perform their function: mass loading and vibration dampening through visco-elastic effect.

In a nutshell, these materials change the resonant frequency of the original exterior and interior panels, by literally weighing them down and lowering the resonant frequency below the frequency band within these panels would vibrate and resonate as a result of energy created by the sound waves.

The other aspect, the visco-elastic effect, allows the sound wave energy to be transformed into mechanical energy transferred to the absorbent middle layer of the dampener and ultimately, turned into small amount of heat.  The negative impact from the liberal use of this type of material is a partial loss of low frequency audio signal aka system efficiency.

The downside to the use of sound deadener/dampener is the added weight and lots of it as a matter of fact because the heavier the material is, the more effective it will be.

When car is constructed using steel or aluminum, less of this material would be required to achieve the vibration reduction.  However, when light materials like carbon fiber or fiberglass or plastic are employed, the task becomes not only challenging but counterproductive as well since in order to lower the resonant frequency,  weight has to be added back to where it was previously saved, making the entire process beyond stupid.

Are there more intelligent ways to combat type of problems?  Yes, of course but this is well beyond the capacities of the typical audio and car shops and involves mechanical decoupling of the speakers generating the problematic frequencies either through mechanical means or through enclosing lower frequency drivers.   This blog could go on and on regarding this subject but this is well beyond the mental capacity of the typical car enthusiasts and very well demonstrated by the idiot who allowed this sound deadener idiocy to end up in his car.

As expected, the typical retarded approach is to load up a shitload of sound deadener throughout the entire car, to the point where occasionally, the door hinges may fail due to the extra weight.

No surprise, this is exactly what happened here, first with the tool picking a car completely unsuitable for effective noise reduction and then relying on a shop in a business of selling sound deadener instead of solving noise issues.

The material of choice for many is of course Dynamat and in this case, the heavier Xtreme version of this cure to all noise problems.

Clearly, the owner of the car has no clue and shop is very happy, selling  a shitload of material and charging arm and leg for installation.  Perhaps the clueless owner is happy as well, carrying a lighter wallet around now while telling himself it is all good and that couple hundred pounds of extra weight actually does anything meaningful?

As usual, this blog is extremely grateful to see the fountain of stupidity never run out... LOL