Flat6 Innovations

Yes, "we" do. Its part of our development and gathering of trend data. I touch on this in my book. We closely guard this information.

Trend data continues to be gathered; however the units that fail completely and lead to catastrophic events are too destroyed to conclusively determine which source provided the bearing. We can only gather the data from the hundreds that have been caught during failure and by taking apart the thousands that have been returned to us and LN that were replaced electively. This is ongoing and always will be.

Absolutely.

Lots of information concerning these bearings has been posted over the years, but 2-3X more has never been divulged publicly.

alpine003

So we have to buy your book to find out the info I guess.

"Hundreds" I believe but I'm having a hard time swallowing your "thousands" of returned IMS. 1k-2k range I can see but your post makes it sound like quite a bit more outside this range. Is there really more than 2k of returned IMS to date? Not expecting you to answer it and even if you did, I'm sure you'll have a lot of skeptics.

babylonboots

Oh no. No more Porsche parts from France, please.

KNS

You shouldn't be too surprised your bearing was made in Japan, your transmission (manual tranny) was as well.

Flat6 Innovations

Last time I checked the enthusiast following fir these cars had not contributed any funds to our R&D program, so like a "free lunch", free info won't ever exist.

The book is on the topic of the assembly of the M96 engine, but includes a few extra chapters, one of which shares IMSB info that has never been shared before. That section of the book will also be released as an E book, available as an individual offering.

Keep in mind that to receive a warranty on the new bearing that the installer MUST return the old bearing to LN Engineering. To date well north of 7,000 bearings have been sold, and since everyone is so worried about a warranty more of the bearings have been returned than you'd believe.

There are bins and bins full of them, so many that a spare room had to be purged just to store them. The majority are held at LN, so I do not have an exact count. Since the last time we purged a few years ago I already have more than 300 here.

The skeptics come with the territory of not telling people just what they want to hear. It also comes from answering direct questions and being politically incorrect and somewhat insensitive to how people perceive the truth as we see it everyday.

The people that don't believe this is a problem are only being unfair to themselves.

Here are a few we pulled over the summer.. We have them logged into the system and now we just need to cut them open and gather the trend data from them Vs mileage and etc. Pardon the mess, I just dumped these out of a bin and took the picture :-)

alpine003

Fair enough

Wow, that's a number I would've never expected since the bearing hasn't been out a very long time, relatively speaking. But fear does play a pivotal role so I guess it's not really 100% surprising.

Just like the flu shot. It's amazing how much hype and marketing has made the flu shot manufacturers a bit richer.(not a slam to you but just tryng to make an analogy that fear can sell a lot of things)

Flat6 Innovations

We've been carrying out the IMSR since 2008, so its longer than people think.

When customers started asking for these retrofits at the local level independent shops started asking their parts providers to carry them. At that point those big names started carrying them in bigger numbers and then started supplying them and advertising them, which got even more shops 'in the know". Today thats the driving force behind the numbers. Just like the retrofit it's self, REQUESTS lead to the development.

When I started working with these engines there were no options. If the IMS bearing even STARTED to fail, there was no way to remove it and was no replacement bearing, or flange or extraction tools. Then many engines were trashed that could have been saved with just a retrofit today.

No, a lot of it today is people thinking it is unfair to be a capitalist that attacks a problem (when no one else is willing to) and then benefit from that after busting *** to develop it. Lots of it is just because in the 21st century its common to just be a whiner and find something, anything to bitch about.

alpine003

Yes I've heard all your marketing before in several posts so nothing new except to the newcomers that might've not heard your speech yet.

The "Requests" are partially driven by fear and you have done a great job at it.

There is nothing wrong with Capitalism and you have been great at marketing, developing, and researching your product and audience. And whether one decides to do the IMS retrofit or not, it's great that there is that option out there for the ones that do. It must be great for your business that Porsche has produced so many 996 and 997's.

Flat6 Innovations

Thats the exact mindset that makes me want to never develop another item, never sell another dollars worth and just walk away. Its the reason why we are ending retail sales and no longer dealing directly with the public for anything other than a complete engine. Done with people.

philooo

To backup Jake,

You have to admin that when someone like Jake Raby sees porsche engine blown up by the dozen each week. You can't expect him to have any other attitude than paranoid about the 996 engine. Sales tactics or not, there is no denying that a bunch of those engine are blowing up. And for cars that are babied most of the time, it is even more of a fact to consider.

Personally I would not own one without extended warranty.

Quadcammer

what a douche.

A 996 owner with fear of an IMSB failure are completely rational. While the overall percentage is likely low, the financial damage if you are one of the unlucky ones is huge.

Jake has made it a point to provide the information, and from what I've seen he is factual, albeit a bit biased given that all he sees are broken cars every day.

That said, a lot of 996 owners would rather stick fingers in their ears or cover their eyes and scream "la la la la la" than admit that there ARE legitimate issues with the M96/7 engines.

Why you want to keep poking the bear on this I'm not sure. No one is forced to buy, but some people seem to see the value, for peace of mind or otherwise.

alpine003

I've heard it all before in your other posts yet you can't just walk away. You always find yourself back in the same spot. Face it, you've got the patents, knowledge, and unique product that is one of the few if not only product like it in the marketplace. You've got the marketing skills clearly and you probably need to support your family or need money for something else.

If you are going to have more of a distributor's model and let resellers deal with people, are you also not going to be posting here as well then since you don't want to deal with "people"?

I don't really understand why you are being so defensive and maybe you are assuming some things or reading into things more. Oh well... The Jake legacy shall live on....

alpine003

All this has been hashed out several times now and yes maybe I do have a douche attitude but I'm entitled to that as well as a great percentage of others that share my views. I don't believe I have directly insulted you or Jake in any way.

Here's the breakdown on how I see it just to clarify.
- Jake is VERY knowledgable about the M series engines
- He has contributed greatly to the Porsche community by offering a solution to a potential IMS failures
- He has gone above and beyond that by not resting on his initial design but taking it further(we shall see what that is).
- There is that potential artificial fear that some feel is generated by him
- We have no conclusive proof on pinpointing exactly what makes the IMS fail(bad batch, manufacturing, different manufacturers, etc) and if it will fail in all engines.
- In the mean time, it is a highly individual decision by each owner to elect to have this done or not. We shouldn't criticize owners for doing or not doing the procedure.
- Fan boys will always come to Jakes defense regardless.
- I've observed a bit of ego boost in his statements lately compared to when he first started posting about this subject which frankly makes hims sound a bit high and mighty.

Flat6 Innovations

I could retire tomorrow and owe nothing to anyone. I'd have a 30,000 square foot hobby shop for my own cars. I worked my *** off through my younger years, made the right decisions and learned about things that no one else was willing to even consider. I have always told myself that the first day I look at my wife and say "I am going to work" that will be the last day that we do business. For years I worked 18 hour days and have went as long as 10 days without leaving the shop property while working on crazy things that we love. Go to bed when the sun comes up, sleep for 3-4 hours at best and then do it all over again the next day, loving every minute of it.

We do this work because we love the challenges, the problem solving and helping those who desperately need us; generally when no one else can help them. I just like to work on things, no matter what they are and honestly the more problematic and misunderstood they are, the more I love it.

Marketing skills? They didn't teach us those in Special Ed.

halik

Completely non-sequitur, but a book on DIY rebuilding of the motors is a great idea. As these cares are getting more and more into the DIY price range, I can see a ton of demand for such publication.

Hell I'd bundle that with special tool sales / rental program.