147 JTD noisy engine

[mikz]

It has now been 3 months since I purchased a new 147 JTD and have clocked up nearly 8000K's, Great car but with one major failing, the diesel engine noise. It seems to have become noisier over time and people turn around expecting a clunky Holden Rodeo only to see a shiny new Alfa ....  very embarrassing !
Ok... so Alfa tell me 'sounds normal' but I take a Citroen loan car (diesel) and it's much quieter than the Alfa...so what gives ... ?  Bit of net searching tells me that Citroen invest time in soundproofing the engine bay so I start checking the Alfa for sound proofing in the bay and quite seriously it is a joke.
Right, now the craziness kicks in, I buy 8 sheets of Dynamat and a Dynamat hoodliner from the States on Ebay.
First I jack the car up and remove the front wheels, remove the plastic wheel well guards, I dynamat on the underside of the wings and then the back of the plastic wheel well guards. Ok starting to hear the difference but subtle, then stick the hoodliner underneath the existing under bonnet soundproofing. Not bad but I notice that most of the sound is actually coming from underneath the vehicle. So I drop the large plastic tray from under the engine, clean it up with metho and completely cover it in dynamat including the gap that they had left because of the exhaust pipe (back to back dynamat there and it is heat resistant ). Few hours worth of work all up .. was it worth it  ...?  in a word ..yes! The engine noise is much subdued what you do hear is more bass and it is far less embarrassing that's for sure. I used Dynamat Extreme by the way, warm it before use in the sun or by placing on top of a hot engine.. makes it much more malleable. Clean all surfaces before applying and make sure you press firmly especially the smaller bits you use to fill gaps and watch the foil reflective surface .... the edges are sharp and I have the cuts to prove it. Put aside a full day to do something like this but my guess is nobody else is as crazy (spells pedantic) as me anyway.