David Keenan 2007 Porsche Targa 4s Demo Car - Shop Spotlight
by CAE, Feb 24, 2009
By this point, Keenan had succeeded in completing a relatively stealth installation. The real challenge came when it was time to address what he calls "the subwoofer crisis." For the install to work, the woofers had to be invisible to naked eye. After some debate, he knew what he had to do. "We were going to cut 2 very large holes into the quarter panels of a $115,000.00 dollar car," tells Keenan. "We proceeded with extreme caution and focused on precision. We constructed an enclosure with 0.8 cubic feet of air on each side of the car behind the factory rear speaker location. We fiberglassed the enclosures to the vehicle to provide structural integrity." After constructing a baffle for each side to mount the JL Audio 8w3v3 into each enclosure, the factory panels were placed over the top of the subs, leaving them completely hidden. "This part of the installation is constantly talked about at IASCA competition," notes Keenan with more than an ounce of pride.
Yet, it's just this kind of illusion that David Keenan and lead installer Jeff Brand aimed to create when he took on the project to install a high-class system in the '07 Porsche Targa 4s demo car. The goal was this: Creep into the car, remove an underwhelming factory stereo and leave behind a killer, competition-ready audio setup, all without disturbing the car's painstaking, luxurious refinements. Keenan explains, "The car's elegance and power rides a fine line and if any part the car was drastically altered you would instantly loose the power and elegance of the entire vehicle." Needless to say, it was quite a task, but along the crew from World Wide Stereo, Keenan was up to the challenge.
With a system like this, though, pride is inevitable. Keenan's hard work and diligence paid off when the car won four regional competitions and placed 4th in the 2007 IASCA World Finals. "We are completing again in 2008 and plan on being at World Finals again!" exclaims Keenan, with at least a glimmer of childhood excitement.
To see more of what this shop can do, visit www.wwstereo.com.
Precision was required again, when Keenan and company set out to install the Dynaudio Esotec System 362, which includes a pair each of MD 102 soft-dome tweeters, MD 142 softdome midranges, MW 172 woofers and X362 crossover networks. Because the vehicle is sensitive to added weight, they had to use insulation material sparingly, installing five square feet of Dynamat and three square feet of Dynaline into each door. For a bit of pizzazz, the team "removed the Bose logo from the door and carefully modified a Dynaudio emblem to fit. This gave the doors an amazing final touch," says Keenan.
