I know them both personally. Jake Raby is credited with the invention of the IMS Solution. Charles' name is on the patent documentation. They both partnered in the development of the IMS Solution along with other IMS Retrofit products offered by LN Engineering.

 

That's the idea, and a great benefit. The IMS Solution bushing doesn't even have to be removed from the IMS shaft assembly.
In 2021 we had 13 of our builds that previously had been fitted with the IMS Solution, and 100% of them were reused without requiring replacement. This saved every one of those owners the cost of a new IMS Solution, since the costs were discounted from the proposed cost the engine would have had otherwise if the Solution had not been fitted. Of these 13 people, 2 of them didn't even know they had the IMS Solution fitted previously. They bought the car, and believed that the IMS issues had not been rectified, so getting this news was a big surprise for their wallet. Unfortunately both of them had been previously ripped off by the seller when they ended up with cars that had bore scoring, and of course- they didn't opt for an invasive PPI.

Of these 13 reused Solutions, 4 of them had bore scoring bring them this way, the remainder were elective big- bore builds. I just finished my 2021 stats last week, and found this interesting, along with the continued elevation of early 996s that fill our schedule.

 

Hi Jake! Any Black Friday deals on your solution by chance? I'd love to put one in my base C2 Cab. Just gotta keep my "budget" in line.

 

As mentioned earlier, LN is running a big sale.

 

I have no idea.. I haven't dealt with any sales of the Solution since I handed that off over a decade ago. I honestly don't even know what they sell for.

Never a discount on FSI engines, that I do know :-)

 

It took me more than two months to finally get the HF heavy lift table, had to keep calling the HF around my area till they knew one was arriving to that store, finally got confirmation one was arriving and was waiting at store for it, at that price it was worth waiting for it. its great to have around. I read L&N was having a 20% off on the solution bearing next week. need to pick up another one for second car.
I modified the handle on the HF lift table to drop all the way down, it allowed the engine and trans to fit on the table with no need for trans jack, I use a small motorcycle scissor lift to support trans on lift table, even with the handle in the down position it is easy to move around with engine and trans on it.

 

Mine was in 2019 but I can attest to the fact that Jake discounted me $2k because I had previously installed The Solution… 👍😃

 

Only took 4 hours (not counting the camera work)

 

Well despite all the crap I’ve given the two previous owners of this car on how poorly they took care of it, it appears they at least upgraded their IMS at some point to an EPS. I’m not familiar with this brand. Anyone?

 

I've had this bearing in my car too. I actually thought it was the original version 1 of LN retrofit but previous owner did a crappy job documenting. With that, it came out in near perfect condition (to my and my mechanic's surprise) after around 7 years of service time. It's a roller type bearing. I know it's not a popular choice on here but I have no problems with it and it clearly did well in my engine. Here is what it looked like after 7 years and 50k ish miles:

 

That looks new!
It appears they "upgraded" their RMS to the EPS bearing seal as well. It's leaking so I think I'll be yanking that out. Anyone use that?

 

For RMS I'd definitely go with a Porsche unit. With that, it's not like those don't leak either. Mine had some minor sweating so we just replaced it with OEM. It's a cheap part.

 

Yogi - I installed the EPS bearing almost a year ago now with 5k miles driven. The most popular cylindrical, at $579 with over 5k installs reported and with zero reported or found failures (extensive searching) I found it to be the best value*. PM me if you want more info about my experience with the company and installation.

Not a lot of objectivity here on LN/Rennlist though with many parrots and echoers. EPS was booted from the forum long ago with threads deleted. I mean "Solution" = zero failures and "Cylindrical" = zero failures, who can say which is better, right, objectively speaking that is. I'm not pumping any brand here either, I can't find ANY cylindrical failures.

If you are splitting the case without removing the bearing from the IMS, I'd inspect it and ask the company about reusing it (they are very responsive). If you pull the bearing I would not reuse it. It would be good to ask the prior owner when it was installed too. You might be able to match it to work shown on a carfax report.

Looking forward to more YT on this subject.

*zbomb - even for Porsche, value is relative

 

Appreciate your honest perspective. I'm not going to remove the bearing but most likely splitting the case to inspect the piston rings.

 

I'll just leave these pics right here..


Now. if you will just post a pic of the LN IMS "Solution" that has failed???

I'm not a fan of the EPS roller bearing " thrust control"..... IF you MUST save a few bucks go with LN's roller bearing ie "RND roller bearing" , it's an NUP204E type and has the "factory thrust control", a much better design...