Installation Tour 11/99
Several Rennlist members near the East Coast (www.rennlist.org, an online Porsche community) wanted to upgrade the stereo systems in their Porsche 911's. This usually isn't so challenging, I've been shipping out upgrade packages and my handbuilt subwoofer enclosures to Porsche owners for about 7.5 years. Here's the catch, they wanted me to install the stuff too! I tried to figure out how much it would cost to take such a trip, whether it would even be financially feasible. A total of 9 members expressed interest and this was perfect for the 9 days that I planned to try to make it all happen.
I was very fortunate, I found another MECP certified installer (and fellow Porsche nut), my younger brother Jon to help me. We flew to Chicago, with plans to rent a car and make several stops traveling East and finally flying home from Baltimore, Maryland. Jon really helped to make this possible. In the time that we had, it was still a bit of an installation marathon, with lots of driving mixed in between. It took us one day to cross Pennsylvania and landed us one speeding ticket. Ouch.
In advance, I made subwoofer enclosures, packed components such as amplifiers, speakers, CD players, etc., and shipped everything out to each individual customer, charging their credit cards for the products. I planned to collect labor charges when I was "onsite" performing the actual work. We were delighted to find that several customers offered accommodations, which allowed us to keep costs down, and reduced some of the travel time. I think that everyone actually offered us a place to sleep, but a few times we had to "keep moving", so we had to say "no thank you" to some of these offers. Imagine waking up in someone's house, then going out to the garage to install a high end stereo system into their Porsche 911. Oh man, too cool.
First Stop: Chicago
,We flew into Chicago, picked up our rental car, and spent the night at Kevin's ( krw@rennlist.com )house. Kevin has a beautiful 1987 Carrera, and we installed the big Sony amplifier and the custom subwoofer enclosure with Kicker Competition subwoofers in his car. He already had some upgraded door speakers and an indash Blaupunkt CD player, so this wasn't as involved as some of our "full installations", but the results were pretty dramatic. I'd packed 9 of my Car Audio Innovations Demo Tracks CD's, and when I played the selected tracks on Kevin's system, it sounded good. Really good. Whew, one down, 8 to go! (Thank you for all the great hospitality Kevin!)On to Ezra's ( ez@goldman.org ) partner's house (and a nice big house it was!)to install an indash CD player, power capacitor, and a/d/s/ amplifier installation on his beautiful red 1991 C4. Ezra's passenger seat proved to be more than a challenge to remove, with some racing belt attachment bolts that prevented any movement of the seat. Yikes! Ezra actually went shopping for tools and spent a good 2 hours on this project himself, all the while proving to be extremely patient and good natured about a really tough predicament. Impressive! We finally made our way through everything, and Ezra provided free pizza for Jon and I, and also demonstrated the nicest home theater I've ever seen. Ezra's system sounded really good too, so we headed for Stephen's place.
Stephen (FSS006@aol.com) was very polite, even though we were about 2 hours behind schedule at this point, and we installed a Viper 500ESP alarm on his 930, with keyless entry, starter disable, etc. This only took a couple of hours, and Stephen fed us Bratwurst while he finished watching "Matrix". Our day of installations was finished, so we headed to a hotel to collapse, prepared for some driving on Monday morning.
Monday morning came, and we hit the road early to find Brian's (bebbmi@BuxtonMotorsports.com ) place in Evansville, IN. It took 5 hours, (more than we'd thought), so we were late arriving at Brian's shop, which is really a showroom of beautiful cars, Porsches, a Ferrari, and some "other" cars. Brian was gracious and provided space to work around his immaculate 1979 930, silver with a Cancan interior. The dash and door panels were better than many I'd seen on newer cars, and the car in general is in great shape. We proceeded to install an Alpine indash AM/FM/CD player, 12 disc changer, two PPI amplifiers, JL high end speakers in the doors, and the subwoofer enclosure with JL Audio subs. The carpet I'd covered the enclosure with was an excellent match, and the system looked and sounded fantastic. We wrapped up at about 10:00 pm, and I demonstrated the system for Brian with the CAI demo tracks CD, pointing out flaws in the recordings. (!) Brian recommended driving halfway to Cincinnati (our next stop) to stay the night in Louisville. This worked out great, 1.5 hours of driving and we found a Ramada Inn and some food.
(Okay, so this was going to be a trip with lots of work and driving, not any real sightseeing or relaxing. But, there were some nice benefits, we were able to meet some really neat people (face to face), spend time with them, work on their cars, and talk about stereos and Porsches. We couldn't think of anything better to do, actually.)
On to Cincinnati, Ohio. Alan ( Oneferret@aol.com ) was more than gracious as we toured his really neat shop, with lift, space for several cars, and his 1990 C4 cabriolet. Alan and his son Kory are a great father and son team, it was great fun hanging out with them in the "dream shop" setup they have. I'd spoken with Cory before, too, when he'd ordered a complete stereo system for their 1982 911SC, which is now in the body shop for a complete repaint. Alan went for the "works" on his new cabriolet, with all upper end JL Audio stuff, a capacitor, the Sony amplifier, and a really nice Pioneer head unit with a "screensaver"! We tried the demo CD on Alan's new system, and it knocked our socks off. And this is a cabriolet with the top down! More free pizza, and we were done and on our way. They offered to put us up for the night, but we had to decline to keep on schedule.
Brice ( lbkadel@main-net.com ) has been pleading with me to visit him in Urbana, Ohio, for a while now, he was convinced that he "owed" me something for the advice that I gave him on fixing the previous poor quality installation in his gorgeous red Carrera. We took him up on his offer for overnight accommodations enroute to NY. I tweaked some of the settings on his amplifier (he bought the big Sony amp and door speakers from me), we talked about Porsches and his really neat garage layout (Porsche logos abound), and encouraged us to relax in his hot tub. That was like a much-needed break. The next morning it was time to hit the road again, and we crossed the entire state of Pennsylvania, altogether about 10 hours of driving to reach New York.
We arrived at John's ( John.Burke@clamericas.com ) place in Manhattan Wednesday evening, and after fighting some really ugly traffic and the Lincoln Tunnel, we decided that we'd do everything we could not to return to NYC in the near future. John was a great host, putting us up for the night, and we accompanied him and some friends to a nice restaurant nearby. Get this, Thursday morning John let me drive his beautiful dark metallic blue 1995 Porsche 993 all the way out to Steve's Ultimate Garage in New Jersey (only a 1/2 hour drive, unfortunately) for the installation! We were easily able to talk John into driving our rental car out that evening to pick up his car so we wouldn't have to deal with the NYC traffic again. He's that nice! The full system went into John's car, subwoofer package with matching carpet, JL Audio separates into the doors, a nice AM/FM/CD head unit, the big Sony amplifier under the passenger seat, and it sounds great. It sounds 100 times better than the crappy Nokia "Hi-Fi" setup that was in the car, and now has terrific, accurate, responsive bass and crisp, clear mids and highs. John was very thankful, and he left to enjoy the drive back to the city with his new tunes. Whew, another full system completed.
Steve D'Gerolamo ( steved3@idt.net ) and his Ultimate Garage in New Jersey were the perfect combination for John Burke's 993 stereo installation. Well lit, and impressive, just like the phot on his website www.ultimategarage.com . Throughout the day, Steve provided info on local food, details about the incredible garage setups that he designs and installs, and he even put us up (put up with us?) Thursday night in his fantastic house, after buying us dinner. Steve is a real craftsman, and his house has had extensive work done inside, he designed and remodeled the entire second and third floors with incredible work and premium materials throughout. Jon and I were able to relax that evening with the home theater (he has one on each floor!) and then sleep in our "own" bedrooms. The next morning Steve helped me to replace a faulty soldering torch at a local tool supplier (Steve is a dealer for many tools and parts, and has an impressive inventory of car parts that he sells and some that he assembles too), then we drove up to the shop working on his immaculate black on black 1987 930. We installed premium JL Audio XR series component speakers all around, a Kenwood KDC9011 revolving MASK face head unit, the Sony amplifier, subwoofer package with JL Audio subs, and we were more than pleased with the results. The other workers in this shop were impressed by the results as well, and took great interest in the look and sound of the installation. Steve was doubly happy, I think, they'd figured out his fuel pressure problem (the accumulator was my first guess, after having seen it mentioned on the list!), plus he has a great sounding stereo system with a really nice high-end head unit. That revolving face really impresses people as a neat anti-theft feature.
Okay, it's Friday afternoon, about 3 pm, and Jon and I need to drive to Joel's ( jschuman@ibm.net ) place up in Saugerties, New York, about 2 hours away. We reached Joel's place in the early evening, and he took us out to dinner. What a delightfully small town! Joel and his family live at the edge of a lake on a quiet street, and it's like being at summer camp. We returned to Joel's after dinner, and decided to go to see the new James Bond movie with Joel and his stepson Nels. We had a great time, and spent the night at Joel's place preparing for an early morning start on his stereo installation. Joel has a guards red 1988 Carrera, and it was an honor and pleasure to work on it. Joel was great, he picked up muffins and sandwiches for us, and actually helped adapt the JL Audio tweeters to the existing tweeter housings from the previous installation. I was able to connect his existing alarm to the door lock and unlock wires in the car, enabling keyless entry. Joel is such a kind fellow that I derived great pleasure from providing this "surprise". Joel's new stereo system consisted of the subwoofer enclosure with matching champagne factory carpet and Kicker subs, JL Audio VR series component speakers in the doors, Kenwood 4x6" 2-ways on the rear deck, big Sony amplifier, and a Clarion Pro Audio AM/FM/CD head unit. This combination resulted in very accurate, clean sound, and we were pleased to demonstrate the CAI CD on this system for Joel, Nels, and Joel's wife Lynn. Man, what super people. An absolutely inspiring family life for Joel, not to mention his great car and neat house. What a life! We said our good-byes, and headed on to Baltimore.
After about 5 or 6 hours of driving, we reached Baltimore, MD, and Jeff's (nolift911@hotmail.com ) place. Jeff is a really neat guy with a nice 2 bedroom apartment (where we spent the night) and an absolutely pristine dark red metallic 1984 Carrera with tan interior. This car has never been driven in the rain, and if you look inside the fenderwells, it becomes obvious that the car is much like new. Jeff bought this car with 23k miles on it, and it's probably the cleanest, most immaculate Carrera I've ever worked on. Jeff opted for the Kenwood KDC9011 revolving face AM/FM/CD head unit, subwoofer package with tan carpet and Kicker subs, JL Audio XR component 2-way speakers in the doors, the Sony amp, Kenwood 2-ways for the rear deck. We demonstrated this system for a few onlookers, including Josh Pinkert, another list member, and I think it really impressed everyone. I was especially pleased to see that Jeff was happy because he was one of the first listmembers to ask about a trip to the East Coast, and he's just a really nice fellow. We actually had enough time to relax while packing our bags and drive to the airport. 8 hours later, we landed in Sacramento, and I'm glad I'm home.
Was the trip worth it? Of course! We were able to meet people who I'd only spoken with on the phone or by email. My experience with Rennlist members has been 100% positive, every single person whom I've dealt with by phone and in person has been gracious, and more importantly-really appreciative of the kind of work I do. I feel honored to work on cars that are so well cared for, so fun to work with, to drive. My appreciation for the Porsche 911 and quality sound reproduction has made this ideal business for me, and the referrals that continue to receive from the Rennlist members really helps to drive my business. Thank you everyone. As usual, comments, questions, and feedback are always welcome. Sincerely, Rod Birch. HOTROD930@msn.com
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