sds911

So, could the rear end accident have caused or contributed to the bearing failure or the fact that they "removed and reinstalled" his engine to repair the collision damage? Or, does Jake want to share what causes the bearing wear and why the qualification process will change for future retrofits?

Flat6 Innovations

The IMS housing bore is sometimes not centered other times the crankshaft is not centered. Both of these create a condition that is less than favorable for the IMS bearing.

I noted certain constants when disassembling bearings that lead to the current developments.

This is why some engines see multiple bearing failures; because the engine it's self is a leading contributor.

Charles Navarro

As with any reported failure, I am sorry to see that one of kits possibly was at fault, but being there was already a thread going on 986 Forum regarding this failure, I figured it was important to reference that thread and make a few clarifications.

http://986forum.com/forums/general-d...g-failure.html

The engine builder in question was banned from Rennlist and his motivations are questionable, as he's trying to use this failure to get his roller bearing kit into wholesale distribution by discrediting the work Jake and I have done. At no point was LN Engineering contacted to even discuss this - this went straight to the forums, again past posts by "Porsche-Land" again and again have been self-serving.

We do not have all the information here to truthfully understand what happened.

As with any mechanical system or component of that system, there will be failures, it's a matter of reducing the liklihood of said failure. Well knowing that the M96 engine has dozens of modes of failure which can cause foreign object debris that can in turn damage the rest of the engine, including the IMS Retrofit bearing, with a reported 30k miles on the bearing, it's likely there are external factors contributing to the excessive thrust loading indicated in the photos of our bearing.

Again, as I have posted on other threads and as is posted on our website, there have been legit LN bearing failures which are far and few between- these occur almost immediately and we can substantiate that it's likely the bearing itself due to jobs being properly qualified and the health of the engine verified and determined as suitable for retrofitting. Warranty or not, if the procedure is carried out properly, we stand behind our product and will usually help out in some way to lessen the pain, even beyond the part warranty, again, if the job was carried out properly and if there is even the slightest chance that indeed it was our bearing.

mcbit

This is my understanding both from yourself and from other sources as to one of the major issues causing multiple failures.

sds911

Definitely a tough situation for everyone involved given that other factors (i.e., a third variable) can cause a meltdown. To Jake's point, one local Porsche shop owner told me that he had an owner/car that had 3 failures.

Hope the car gets back on the road and the owner gets his money's worth on his new engine. The X51 is great.

alpine003

Oh boy, here we go again. 20+ pages on the topic of the month predicted. To be fair to Martin, he really can't reply since he was banned, so topic should really be centered around the failure itself and not him or roller ball bearing, at least in this thread.

alpine003

Ok running with that, how does this issue affect any kind of retrofit or the solution if one has those conditions present in their engine?

sds911

Yes, that was my original question about whether the IMS Solution would have saved this motor?

And, are you guys (Chuck/Jake) developing a tool or measuring device to tell if the bore or crankshaft are centered or within spec?

TSMacNeil

Subscribed

If I read this correctly the issue is the crank or bore for the IMS isn't centered longitudinally in the block?

D6lc

So is a ceramic bearing more or less susceptible to failure that a standard bearing is the bore is misaligned?, is one more tolerant than the other?

General question on bearings to any engineering experts.

I dont wish to be flamed, but I wonder how many actual failures are due to misalignment in which case replacing the bearing with a ceramic of any makebrand/seller makes no difference.

Flat6 Innovations

Its already developed. Awaiting the green light from the Patent Attorney before going further.

There are several planes to be concerned with in regard to alignment and the tool I have developed takes all of these into consideration.

Ahsai

Porsche discovered the bore misalignment for RMS a long time ago (~9yrs) and they came up with the go no-go tool where a tech will use to decide whether to replace the RMS or the engine (under warranty). Those engines with misalignment will have the RMS failed repeatedly.

So it's quite easy to imagine the same kind of misalignment can happen to IMS as well.

Flat6 Innovations

Guess what? Those engines with a misaligned RMS also have issues with IMS housing bore distance.

Ahsai

Can it be fixed by a precision custom made IMS flange with a slight off center offset to compensate for the misalignment?

Flat6 Innovations

Each misalignment would be different so each flange would be different.

Some crankcases are not correctable.