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Fweasel, you have a skilled hand. I'd screw that up 2 or 3 times to get it even close to looking that good.
I'm cheap so I used what I had laying around. Sanded original bezel 180/320/400 and shot it with some spray paint. Looks like new and its idiot proof.
Looking forward to the console Fuzzy. Did you ever do your door panel inserts?
Are you referring to the acoustic treatment in the doors or the cosmetic work outside? Cosmetically, the only thing I've installed on the doors are the CNCed aluminum door lock pulls. Internally, each door is fitted with about two square feet of adhesive backed felt, eight square feet of Damplifier, four square feet of Luxury Liner Pro, two square feet of pyramid foam, six square feet of 1" medium-density adhesive-backed foam, and a rubber fixture to redirect energy from the back of each Hertz ESK 165.5L speaker. The whole treatment weighs about 10 lbs per door--much less than the insane (and mostly ineffective) carpet bombing that audio guys usually do. However, the price is correspondingly higher--about $200 in materials per door.
The doors no longer creak or groan when you touch them or adopt the "CTS-V brace position." Nor do they rattle when you slam them with the windows down. The most significant impression that I can remember right now was that many of the sounds that I assumed were the fault of the suspension turned out to be the fault of the door.
The stock doors can rattle louder than a Magnaflow with the back seat out if you take the liners out--the only thing that makes them quiet-ish is a 1" layer of low density fluff. It's thick enough to press against the loose door parts and prevents them from vibrating for more than two or three cycles. It's just enough so that your audio system won't buzz like crazy, and when you hit a bump, that middle-frequency sound that you hear doesn't sound like "loose door ****"--it simply sounds like poor to mediocre suspension components. Once you eliminate that garbage, suspension hits sound deeper and cleaner, and you can hear the engine better.
Last edited by FuzzyLog1c; 02-02-2016 at 03:07 PM.
Are you referring to the acoustic treatment in the doors or the cosmetic work outside? Cosmetically, the only thing I've installed on the doors are the CNCed aluminum door lock pulls. Internally, each door is fitted with about two square feet of adhesive backed felt, eight square feet of Damplifier, four square feet of Luxury Liner Pro, two square feet of pyramid foam, six square feet of 1" medium-density adhesive-backed foam, and a rubber fixture to redirect energy from the back of each Hertz ESK 165.5L speaker. The whole treatment weighs about 10 lbs per door--much less than the insane (and mostly ineffective) carpet bombing that audio guys usually do. However, the price is correspondingly higher--about $200 in materials per door.
The doors no longer creak or groan when you touch them or adopt the "CTS-V brace position." Nor do they rattle when you slam them with the windows down. The most significant impression that I can remember right now was that many of the sounds that I assumed were the fault of the suspension turned out to be the fault of the door.
The stock doors can rattle louder than a Magnaflow with the back seat out if you take the liners out--the only thing that makes them quiet-ish is a 1" layer of low density fluff. It's thick enough to press against the loose door parts and prevents them from vibrating for more than two or three cycles. It's just enough so that your audio system won't buzz like crazy, and when you hit a bump, that middle-frequency sound that you hear doesn't sound like "loose door ****"--it simply sounds like poor to mediocre suspension components. Once you eliminate that garbage, suspension hits sound deeper and cleaner, and you can hear the engine better.
I'm glad you're striving to keep the Cadillac a Cadillac. This approach is refreshing after so many seem to turn them into Camaros. I'm still on stock suspension and essentially stock audio equipment so I guess mine isn't getting hammered enough to warrant this just yet but I like quality additions.
I thought you mentioned once that you were going to have the door panel inserts covered with alcantra and didn't know if you had done that yet.
I'm glad you're striving to keep the Cadillac a Cadillac. This approach is refreshing after so many seem to turn them into Camaros. I'm still on stock suspension and essentially stock audio equipment so I guess mine isn't getting hammered enough to warrant this just yet but I like quality additions.
I thought you mentioned once that you were going to have the door panel inserts covered with alcantra and didn't know if you had done that yet.
Don't change the stock speakers unless you have a concrete plan to replace or subvert the stock amplifier. A long while back, I replaced the paper Bose speakers with a set and a half of less terrible Polk DB6501 components. Result: zero perceptible difference. The only significant thing you can do to improve the sound without overhauling the audio pipeline is adding a real subwoofer with an amp and eliminating the plastic tray in the rear deck. That still leaves you with the awful, underpowered integrated amp, fixed crossover frequencies, door and cabin resonances, and terribad EQ. But it's a significant improvement, believe it or not.
The major cosmetic mods are holding until I can eliminate my hardware mod backlog. There are a couple of very good upholsterers within 100 miles that have decades of experience in doing car mods, and together with my electrical engineering abilities, we might try fitting the V2 doors to the V1. Depends on how closely the size and shape match. Even if we can't, I'm going to be adding handle and map compartment lighting to the V1 doors (it's child's play since you have your choice of power options at the panel connector). Regardless, I hate the V1 door design--too flat and there's no vertical bar for passengers to grab when you're cornering.
Lately, I've been multitasking while catching up on TV shows by applying padded Onyx alcantara and Rock West Composites' 3K hexagonal carbon fiber cloth to some used V1 interior panels I bought on eBay. My thought was that the carbon fiber cloth might be a better match for the rubberized V1 interior texture, but the jury's out until I find more time to complete more pieces.
https://www.rockwestcomposites.com/13007-d
Last edited by FuzzyLog1c; 02-02-2016 at 05:23 PM.
I ditched the factory nav for a kenwood and that alone made a big difference. Honestly, the car has a decent stereo so I won't mess with it until it fails.
I tend to spread my automotive dollars across several platforms so easy and cheap is my mantra! Covering the door panel inserts is probably as far as I'd ever take it but I look forward to seeing the results of your efforts.
I'm a fan of simple, OEM interiors, but disliked the brushed aluminum yolk on our steering wheel. After deciding to wrap that, I chose to do the shifter bezel as well knowing the OEM finish wasn't very durable and would only continue to degrade. I'm happy with how they both turned out and never felt the need to wrap every little piece in the cockpit.
Liked this so much I did it to my car. Thank you for the inspiration!
02-02-2016, 07:22 AM
