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Once all was said and done, I had OK'd the usage of a total of 8 cans of NoiseKiller! Good thing, that was all they had! But to this day, I don't regret it. Those 8 cans made an amazing difference in the car.
First, the pingggg was GONE from the car. The only part of the car that we couldn't get to with the NoiseKiller was over the rear suspension. The pinggggg is still there. But that's fine - it gives me a point of reference when showing the car. Just knock over the one of the rear wheels and then knock anywhere else on the car (excepting the hood/engine of course) and you get a nice solid THUD in response.
Also, the music stays inside the car. I always love to show off the effects of the NoiseKiller by playing it very loud with the doors open, then close the doors. The concert goes away! That stuff does an excellent job of keeping the music inside the car - even a very loud volumes.
A common question I get is "does it cut down on the road/engine noise?". Well, honestly I don't think it did all that much to cut down on the road noise. The engine is in front (duh!) and we didn't do anything to dampen the firewall. Besides, the engines in these cars are pretty quiet already. Road noise is too dependent on the types of tires your running and the properties of the road your driving on. Fresh black top will sound different from poured concrete, etc. And they all sound different with different tires. With the 8 cans of NoiseKiller and many square feet of jute material we added, I'd say the noisefloor of the car driving down the highway (stereo off) was reduced only minimally.
BUT... That was not the goal of the NoiseKiller. The goal was to dampen vibrations and reduce the resonant noise of the car, taking the hollowness out of the car by dampening the sheet metal and anything else that might cause extraneous vibrations and noises. That's one of my biggest pet peaves about car audio - little vibrations, buzzes, and extra noises. Hate 'em. And I went to great lengths to kill pretty much ALL of them in my car.
Pictures 10 through 13 show various portions of the car the next day after the reams of paper and tape were removed. It revealed a very well-done job of applying the NoiseKiller. There was virtually no overspray! The dash was perfectly protected (-whew!-) and a few specks made it on the glass - but warm water washed it right off. Notice that even the roof and supporting structure were covered. A big piece of jute was later added to the roof replacing the factory piece that was removed.
Notice in picture 12, at the far left, the rear speaker pod - the car came with a plastic pod that was ported! I got a good chuckle the first time the rear side panel was removed and I saw that. Wanna add bass - just put a pair of 6x9 subs in there! hahaha
Fellow S3 owners, if you're considering an aftermarket sunroof, you can plainly see that it's very feasible as there is no cross-support on the roof. Just a big piece of metal. You do have to bear in mind that it's a compound curved piece though (curves front to back as well as side to side).
