jasper

There you go - they fixed it good eh? (not)

So - is it fair to say the newer design is at least *better* than the old design?

Thnks

Flat6 Innovations

Its the SAME design.. The ball bearings and races are just larger, but it IS NOT a design change.

We don't consider it better, because it can't be serviced without engine disassembly. The very early dual row bearings are the *best* of the bunch, but thats like trying to pick a less rotten egg out of a dozen rotten eggs.

Again, thats my opinion thats been formed from seeing these things grenade on a weekly basis, so it is totally biased and probably a bit unfair because we don't see engines that aren't broken.

D6lc

Sorry Jake, but in the grand scheme of Porsche global sales I dont believe the IMS issues are as bad as you make out, yes you may see alot, but then Porsche sold thousands of 996 & Boxters.
All vehicles have issues, your business is making money from addressing one of them. You should be applauded for that, but unfortuneatly such posts and replys on internet forum help drive such issues out of proportion.

Flat6 Innovations

I appreciate your opinion. Come answer my phones for a week and your jaw would hit the floor by Wednesday in disbelief. No one could imagine it unless they lived it first hand.

Like I said, I am biased by what we are exposed to every single day. To us it seems like every car on the road is dead or dying because of exposure.

thirteeneast

Haters,

Imagine if you will a parallel universe.

"But there's no Flat 6 Innovations"

When your ***** snap, your guna have to pay Porsche to pick your ***** up.

$$$$$$$

LOL

Jacks911

In a class on Buying a used Porsche, our local Indy and PCA National Tech Adviser shared that replacing the IMS Bearing is your best investment if you are buying a Boxster or 996. However, he also noted that his shop has installed over 80 LN Bearings and of the bearings removed... only 3 where bad. One he noted could have failed in hours. So in this very un-scientific sample, of aware and active Porsche owners who wanted to care for their 996, 986 Porsche's, less that 5% failed - but who among us wants to be the 5%.

D6lc

I'm not a hater at all, if you read the post I said that Jake should be applauded, I think his work is great in that he has developed a fix for those that previously would have had a scrap engine.
I just think the overall IMS hysteria is overplayed and there are hundreds of good engines for every one failure, personally I dont believe it is 5%.
That is my view and I respect others including Jakes that differ.

MiamiC70

I have the LM upgrade as i too read all the horror stories pre-purchase. But dealing with two different indys in Miami and the local Porsche dealer over the last two years the concensous from all 3 is that the IMS failure is a RARE event. Can it happen along with the other 20+ items that "could" go wrong sure but after 2 years of ownership and meeting many 996 owners outside of the forums I just don't see that it can possibly be as big a % as is being touted.

alpine003

I would like to share a similiar story. I bought a used Porsche part online and picked it up in person this year. After talking to the guy, I ended up finding out that he was a Porsche Master Tech and had been with the same dealership for 30 years.

As you can imagine my eyes bulged and my heart pounded when I heard this. And if it wasn't for my wife waiting in the car for me, I could've easily had a 4+ hour conversation with this guy.

Of course you know what my first question was. What he said was very interesting. He indicated that he never personally saw a failure directly attributed to an IMS the whole time he was working there come in his shop. However, he said the dealership's owner's neighbor suffered a blown engine and the IMS was most likely the culprit. This is when he personally found out that Porsche would not really step up to the plate in any big way which left a sour taste in his mouth.

He acknowledged the fact that direct IMS failure is rare in his experiences yet because of Porsches lack of support in these cases, he personally would probably do the IMS retrofit for a piece of mind if he had a 996 or 997.

Which brings up something that's been said again and again. I think the IMS retrofit is hugely a personal decision based on what types of risks you want to take and whether you can sleep not having it. Some people like to take more risks and chances than others. There is no wrong or right regarding this IMO.

I would like to say though that people that considered doing an IMS retrofit at their next Clutch change interval might be turned off or elect not to do it if the convenience is not there for anyone to be able to install it except at the Flat6 facilities or select installers. However I can understand Jake wanting to keep a certain level of QA process as to not taint the reputation of his product due to faulty installations.

My $.03

trapperdog

I agree with alpine's remarks and had similar experience when I asked one of our local Cleveland inde's what they have seen. So, for what it's worth (which ain't much), out of 5 or 6 LN IMS jobs over the past two years, none of the removed bearings showed any outward visible signs of problems, and, they said they personally hadn't seen any engine failures in their shop due to IMSB coming apart. The owner went on to say that it "seemed" like many of the failures he's heard and read about were coming out of the west coast for some reason. Now I presume that there are a lot more Porsches running around Cali than Ohio, so that might explain the higher incidence on the west coast, but who knows, maybe it's the salt air or smog out there.

fanny bay r1

I agree with most of the previous comments and the Servicing Director at Weissach in Vancouver (Canada's largest independent Porsche dealership) stated the same experience - only ever seen one or two IMS induced failures while supporting literally thousands of 996/997/986/987 vehicles. That said I'm going to put the LN bearing in at the upcoming clutch change (12-18 months away most likely) just for peace of mind. In the interim I check the filter at annual oil changes and other than that it doesn't even concern me!!

Flat6 Innovations

Someone didn't remove the seals from those bearings and actually inspect them. You can't tell if the bearing is in any mode of failure process without inspection.

Ask him of those 80 how many had ANY engine oil inside the IMS tube when the bearing was extracted. The very first stage of IMSB failure is a compromise of the outer seal which allows engine oil into the bearing thus washing the permanent lubrication from the bearing. The outer seal then inhibits enough engine oil from reaching the critical areas of the bearing to allow for proper cooling and lubrication of the bearing. This is why the engine oil is inside the tube as it has already passed by the outer seal, through the bearing and then by the inner seal and ends up trapped inside the tube.

An IMS tube with oil inside of it means that IMS bearing is failing. Of those we have pulled here, certainly more than anyone in the world we have seen less than 20 engines that had dry IMS tubes. There is no other way for oil to end up inside the IMS tube except through the IMS bearing-period.

Washing the oil from a recently extracted IMS bearing and then giving it the "spin test" is the better way to grade the health of an IMSB, the oil gives an artificial sense of better health than reality. Cutting the bearing apart reveals it all. A "spin test" without washing the oil away is virtually worthless.

We didn't create a solution for a false problem; we created the retrofit and now the Solution because of demand from people just like you guys. Less than five years ago if your IMS bearing was failing no one had the tools or knowledge to extract it and you needed a new engine. The factory didn't offer a part and they still don't outside of a new IMS assembly that requires full engine disassembly to be fitted to the engine. The factory claimed that the bearings were not serviceable and everyone else listened while we took the challenge to develop the tools and processes.

I built the first extraction tool from old scrap pieces laying around the shop and 12 bucks worth of parts from the local hardware store. The day I pulled the first bearing with it all that mattered was the fact that we broke the rules set forth by the factory, and every Porsche service writer and technician in the world at that time.

Times have changed and what was once deemed impossible by the factory and dealerships has now seen every dealer in the US and Canada installing the Retrofit bearing with the exception of just three. One dealer even got a smack down from PCNA for their brochure saying that pretty much the bearing had to be applied, else the engine would fail. If you guys that we are fearmongers, you should have seen that brochure!

alpine003

I'm leaning towards that way, not out of fear but the fact that my car will probably be coming close to 130k miles by then and if you think about how fast this bearing spins and the fact that all bearings are wear items, it might just make sense to do so while you're in there at this kind of mileage. But then knowing my luck, the chain tensioner would fail and the chain guides would disintegrate into the engine anyhow.

Now if there were several documented 200k+ mileage original m96 996's all over the place, I might think otherwise.

Byprodriver

20% of Porsche's have been sold new in CA

450knotOffice

I had 110,000 miles on my daily driven 2000 996 when it was finally time for a clutch change. I had my (very experienced) Porsche mechanic friend replace the IMS bearing for the LN Engineering version, along with the RMS, while he had it all apart. I did it for what I consider inexpensive peace of mind. He agreed that it was a good idea. How did my bearing look when he removed it? Perfect. No visible signs of damage anywhere. However, am I glad I spent the $700 on this bearing and support? Absolutely.