DIY for removing asphalt & carpet noise damping mats (w exact weight reduction #s)
 

Cliff notes version:

WHY: to save weight on any non-RS Evo 8 or 9, basically for free

HOW/TOOLS REQUIRED: to remove asphalt pads = basic hand tools, dry ice, hammer + putty knife or chisel, WD-40; to remove firewall carpet padding = basic hand tools, phillips screwdriver, lots of patience & time; a helper to reinstall dash

DIFFICULTY/PITA FACTOR: removing asphalt pads = 5 out of 10; removing firewall carpeting = 7.5 out of 10

WEIGHT SAVINGS: asphalt pads, all seven = 11.73 lb.; firewall carpeting = 11.98 lb. (total 23.71 lb.)

DON'T DO THIS: if you think that saving less than 24 lb. "isn't worth anything," you need your Evo to drive to work in 24 hours or less, or if you already think your Evo is too loud

I started this project because I believe light makes right—not just to make a car faster/accelerate harder, but because it helps a car stop and turn too (important to me since I use my Evo for autox and track day events).

Taking the asphalt noise-damping mats off won't make my car any louder, since I've already stripped the trunk, removed the rear seat, solidmounted the rear diff, and pulled the front fender liners, so any slight increase in noise will be overwhelmed by the rest of the cacophony once the car's rolling at more than 25 mph.

Removing the firewall carpet probably allows a bit more heat to radiate through beyond just the increase in noise. Not sure how noticeable this will be, but I'm hoping that since Mitsubishi decided to sell RS versions of the Evo w/o this stuff to the general public, it won't be intolerable.

REMOVING THE ASPHALT MATTING

To remove the asphalt noise mats on the floor panels of your Evo, you'll need to strip the interior (pull seats, center console, door threshold trim, both kick panels, and the trim panels between door openings) and then remove the entire carpet pad. The anchor bolts for the front shoulder belts and the dead pedal need to be removed as well.

I used one bag (about 7 1/3 lb) of dry ice from King Soopers (Kroger outside of CO and WY) to freeze and remove the noise mats. I highly recommend buying two bags of dry ice, so you can freeze one section while working on removing another—it's go twice as fast this way.

I found I needed to keep the dry ice on each section for about 5 minutes to really chill it well. After they're frozen, hit the mats (fairly hard; gentle tapping won't do it, but not hard enough to dent the sheet metal behind it obviously) with the hammer, and use the putty knife or chisel under it as necessary to get it to loosen/break free.

The mats stick really well to the yellowish seam sealer putty under it, so in those sections, I had to physically pry it off and then clean it up with a razor scraper. I used WD-40 to clean up the small bits of asphalt stuff left behind.

The hardest mat to remove is the one wrapped around/over the transmission tunnel, if you're hellbent on getting all of it out. Access is hard with the metal structure of the dash/wiring harnesses in that area.

Detailed weight info:

Front footwell mats (each): 2 lb., 1.8 oz., ± 0.2 oz.
Rear footwell mats (each): 1 lb., 5.0 oz., ± 0.2 oz.
Mat under rear seat: 2 lb., 12 oz.
Mat wrapped around transmission tunnel: 1 lb., 13.4 oz.
Small square "ring"-shaped mat on the tunnel that's under the e-brake cables, under the rearmost section of the center console storage box: 3.8 oz.

Before the carpet came out:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...oleremoved.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...rimremoved.jpg

BTW, the entire carpet (w the glued-on padding underneath): 16.75 lb.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ing1675lb3.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ing1675lb2.jpg

What it looked like before:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...rrearseat2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...removal009.jpg

In these pics, you can see both the asphalt mat and firewall carpeting:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...removal013.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...removal012.jpg

The tools & dry ice:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...movaltools.jpg

What it looks like, after dry ice and using a razor scraper but before WD40:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...zorscraper.jpg

All that crap removed:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...adremoved2.jpg

Total weight (minus the .24 lb of the smallest of the 7 mats, the one under the e-brake cables, which I did later, plus there were small bits & leftover tar that I vacuumed up or dissolved, so there was a little more weight saved undocumented):

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...otal1145lb.jpg

After lots of cleaning and vacuuming:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...arseatarea.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...riversside.jpg

PULLING FIREWALL CARPET PADDING

To do this, you must remove the dash. The rubbery mat over the carpet padding is too strong/stretchy to rip it out in sections. You have to not only remove the dash, but then move it out of the way far enough to allow you access to get behind it and remove the black plastic heat/AC fan box bolted to the passenger side firewall, and loosen the big white plastic HVAC unit behind the center of the dash, in order to get all the carpet padding out.

This isn't really hard, but it is a total PITA. I didn't enjoy the process at all.

To remove the dash, there's actually only 8 bolts that actually hold it in (4 total 14mm bolts, 2 behind each panel on the ends of the dash; 4 total 10mm bolts to center console area) but there's lots of other disassembly required to go along with it.

For example, you need to pull the radio/disconnect its harness, disconnect the two control wires to HVAC panel, disconnect multiple electrical harnesses in both kickpanel areas, disconnect harness behind steering column, disconnect two harnesses that go between the dash and the fan box, etc.

You can see how far the firewall padding goes up:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ashbefore2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...dashbefore.jpg

These are the 14mm bolts on the ends of the dash, under the access panel:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...sassembly1.jpg

The 10mm bolts that attach the central/lower section of the dash to the transmission tunnel:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...sassembly2.jpg

Pulling radio trim (start by pulling the knobs off; there's two silver Phillip heads screws behind the two outer knobs):

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...sassembly3.jpg

The black and blue HVAC control wires need to be disconnected:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...sassembly4.jpg

See how I pulled the fake CF painted trim panel? Yeah, that's not necessary at all:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...sassembly5.jpg

You DO however need to drop the steering column, which is bolted to the bottom of the dash assembly with four 12mm headed bolts:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...sassembly6.jpg

You also need to remove both of the light grey pillar trim pieces, above the dash unit... if you don't, the dash will hang up on them because of two little tabs from the pillar trim that insert into the ends of the dash:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...sassembly7.jpg

When you pull the dash back, be sure the bottom metal edges of the center console area doesn't pinch/cut any of the wiring harnesses routed on the transmission tunnel.

After you pull the fan box (3 or 4 12mm head gold-colored nuts, the harness to the fan motor, etc), this is what you'll finally see:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...sssidedash.jpg

I didn't take any pictures at this point in the project, since I was pissed off and tired and bleeding from 3 places on my hands and arms, but I did reassemble all that MFing carpet padding afterwards to show you how much of it there is:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...irewallmat.jpg

All that crap weighs almost exactly 12 lb.:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...mat1198lb2.jpg

And what it looks like done, with the dash reinstalled:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...riversside.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...edpassside.jpg

Final note: when you remove the heat/AC fan box to get the carpet mat sandwiched behind it out, and then reinstall it, you may dislodge a rectangular black plastic trim piece that fits around it, on the engine side of the firewall.

Check to make sure it's still in place after you bolt up the HVAC box, or reinstall it if it did come off. On my car, it didn't really seem to snap or click in place; it just fits around it kinda loosely.

holy crap...nice write up man...At this point, I can see myself doing everything you did in this write up except removing the firewall padding...I can already tell I would get way too pissed off trying to do that...

You're welcome. When I was considering this project, I couldn't find a detailed how-to thread with good info on how much weight would actually be saved, so I thought I'd do one.

Thanks to you for the stock-appearing turbo fastest/quickest in 2010 list! Too bad my 11.649 @ 124.60 (BBK full, horrible 1.9 60-ft) last year is nowhere near fast enough to be on it... :lol:

As you can see, if you're okay with your car having no carpet, just taking the carpet out saves almost 5 pounds more (and is way easier) than pulling the firewall padding.

Here are some related interior part weights I documented along the way:

Evo 9 SE rear center console w cupholders, rear storage bin, & rear ashtray – 3.50 lb.
Evo 9 center console, front section with shift boot, lighter assembly & associated wiring (no ashtray) – 2.78 lb.
Evo 9 ashtray – 0.43 lb.
Evo 9 deadpedal assembly – .31 lb.
Evo 9 driver’s side kick panel (w glued-on carpet padding square) – .38 lb.
Evo 9 pass. side kick panel (w glued-on carpet padding square) – .41 lb.

Evo 9 SE passenger Recaro seat w/ mounting brackets & sliders – 27.4 lb.

Evo 9 front pillar trim w tweeter grills – .73 lb. each
Evo 9 front door threshold (w mounting snaps) – .49 lb. each
Evo 9 rear door threshold (w mounting snaps) – .36 lb. each
Evo 9 pillar trim (below front shoulder belt) – 1.16 lb. each

Evo 9 SE rear seat lower cushion – 10.38 lb.
Evo 9 SE rear seat “under pad” – 1.67 lb.
Evo 9 SE rear seat upper cushion & armrest – 15.45 lb. (27.5 lb rear seat total)
Evo 9 SE driver’s rear door panel – 3.89 lb.

Are you still going to be running the car in SCCA Street Mod, and if so, is this mod legal?

Matt

Yes, and yes; as the RS version of the Evo comes from the factory w/o any of this stuff, and the RS is classed with all the rest of the Evos in SM.

Thanks for the writeup. I'll be removing that firewall carpeting for sure! I'm just going to remove the dash from the car, I have done it in the past and was fairly easy.

I totally forgot about update/backdate to RS. You are right on.

Matt

great write up. i just removed my dash last week. wasn't as bad as i thought. but it would definitely help if i would have found this post first. great job on documenting all the weight. :thumbup:

Thanks for the write up. Nice job!

Outstanding writeup! I plan on doing this over the summer in preparation for a cage, but one question. Is that tan-ish sealant where people seamweld? It would look so much cleaner without it... and if that's where the seamwelds go, then it looks pretty easy to know where they go for a first timer like me.

Asbestos?
 

I removed all extra seats, carpet, plastic molding, bracing metal, spare tire, dashboard etc. etc. in my Honda 2000 Accord and got down to the asphalt padding glued to the metal frame. My question is whether or not this contains asbestos? Does the firewall contain asbestos? Since I'm completely disassembling / stripping my car down to its barest elements for weight purposes, I'm interested to know where asbestos occurs in the car...if it does at all. Thanks for the responses, and great workup / photos on the breakdown. Looks great.

I dont think Asbestos has been used for quite some time in applications like this lol

Great write-up! How much more noise/vibration should I expect after removing the firewall padding? I did the sound deadening already.

More vibration, none. Extra noise, some; but for those of use running aftermarket downpipes, test pipes, and loud, straight-through muffler exhausts, I doubt you'll notice much, if any increase in sound.

No idea if it has asbestos, but I doubt it. The mat comprises a heavy rubber backing and a dense, carpet-padding-like material. There's no reason for it have asbestos in it. It's on the passenger-compartment side of the firewall. Even if the engine's on fire, the steel firewall of the unibody is what's going to be directly exposed to the heat, not the noise/heat barrier behind it.

Thank you!