frederik

Will do! I'm very intrigued to see what happened to the bearing. It's possible it was installed incorrectly -- I did notice a more whining sound from the engine after the replacement, but I only did a test drive before so I'm not 100% certain about this. Hopefully the rest of the engine is still OK. And what type of bearing should I have installed? Probably best to just go for the IMS solution right away.

aviography

Did the shop do a pre-inspection, I.e. remove oil pan, prior to begin the IMS bearing replacement?

jmj951

@frederik For the sake of data integrity in this thread, if it wasn't the bearing the failed, please edit/update your original post so that this doesn't remain on the Internet. Either way, this will be an important data point. If it is an IMS failure, it would definitely reduce the number of people choosing this path.

FYI, I have no vested interest in LN. I personally chose to replace my failed double-row IMS bearing with a new Porsche part that includes an original double-row bearing mounted on a new shaft, with the grease seal removed from the bearing (at that time, the 'IMS Solution' was brand new and there was no history on it, so my engine builder wouldn't use it). This is almost definitely going to induce more wear and forces this to be a standard maintenance item that I'm going to have to replace at some point, but it protects against the worst-case scenario of the grease seal leaking enough to let out the grease while storing acidic moisture within. Someday, I will likely replace it with the 'IMS solution' that uses an oil-fed journal bearing.

frederik

Nope! I didn't know anything about the M96 engine at that time otherwise I would have proceeded more carefully, but I negotiated the bearing replacement into the sale. I do know the old bearing seemed to be fine. I will update the original post once I know more.

jmj951

I agree. The IMS Solution seems to be the only long-term solution.

hoofdpijn

With the pre-qualification being a key part of the equation.

DrMEMS

The same thing happened to me. I called LN and talked to them twice. They were dismissive.

thefleshrocket

The LN IMS Solution is onerously expensive at ~$1800, but you can find it on Ebay for $1365 with a "best offer" so you can probably get it even cheaper. https://www.ebay.com/itm/17477105656...IAAOSwP25a3J~3 $1365 is still a LOT of money for what you're getting, but if you're spending the ~$1500 in labor to have the IMS bearing changed, you might as well spend the $1365 and get the "it supposedly ain't ever gonna fail" bearing. For the record, I paid full retail for the IMS Solution (didn't know better at the time), and it ran me about $4500 for it, plus labor plus a new clutch. The original bearing on my '02, with 38K miles on it, was in perfect shape, and the clutch was okay as well, but the engine felt a bit smoother and the new clutch felt a lot better, after the upgrades.

808Bill

Expensive? Do you have any idea how much money was spent to come up with the "perfect" IMSB replacement? I'd say it's cheap insurance that could save you $10-$25K in the long run!

bmchan

2000 C2 Tip with 52K miles. I have owned 2 months and it has a dual row IMS sooooo.

DSC800

The forum support of LN bearings is quite the phenomenon.

So, you buy a "ceramic" bearing for $900! (wholesale value = ~$50) to proactively replace a perfectly fine OEM bearing hoping for a better life for your M96. The new ceramic bearing is so fragile it requires some kind of onerous, expensive "pre-inspection", then, you must install it with nothing heavier than a feather or "warranty void". Oh, and then you must return your old bearing (wtf). When the new bearing fails (research shows them failing quite a bit) in not too many miles, the company tells you "it wasn't installed correctly". THEN! the usual suspects in the forum community parrots ad nauseum "buy the IMS Solution" for a whopping $1900 FROM THE SAME COMPANY! Then, pay even more money for more labor to a "certified installer". Seriously, can anyone sane find the flawed reasoning here?

Oh, and by the way, that original ceramic bearing has the poorest warranty of any IMSB you can find. It is actually less than half of what Porsche's factory warranty was on their original flawed bearing. Way to stand behind a product.

When looking for my 996 I put ZERO value on a car having a ceramic bearing. I researched a ton and self installed a cylindrical (roller) bearing that the company stated it had no failures. I'm diligent by nature so I searched and couldn't find a single failure of ANY brands* bearing of this type, None, Zip, Nada. Cost was a third less. Warranty was double, unlimited miles. No stupid "prequalification's". Great customer service. No sending my old bearing back. Self install was easy. You don't get a sticker though.

Did I miss anything, any mistakes I need to correct?

*And, before you ask, my relationship to any bearing or parts company (or any company)? None, Zip, Nada.

Charles Navarro

This is nothing new. The haters are going to hate.

As I've stated in the past and likely even in this same thread, the pre-qualification and registration requirements are there for a reason. There are many people and shops putting bearings into engines that shouldn't be retrofitted. If the warranty requirements which aren't that difficult to adhere to aren't followed, there is no warranty. If you do it right and register it, there is nothing really to argue about and in the few instances where likely there was a quality issue with the bearing, we took care of customer. Likewise, if the bearing was done in 2008 (yes, the IMS Retrofit has been around that long) and it fails, it's out of the recommended service interval. The IMS Retrofit was never designed as a permanent replacement like the IMS Solution was (which carries a much longer warranty).

I'll repeat as I have done many times before. There are literally tens of thousands of cars out there that have bearings far beyond the service interval. We even offer a mail in rebate for those needing to service their IMS again with a larger discount for those who opt for the IMS Solution which basically knocks them down to our cost. Remember, the majority of all these kits are sold through wholesale channels and there are minimum margins that have to be built into these parts, just like anything else you buy, even beyond car parts.

The other guys claim their roller bearing kits are permanent and have had no failures, but that's simply not the case. Their kits haven't been around long enough or enough sold to have any meaningful quantity in service. Hartech among other shops have shared pictures of them on some of the Porsche Facebook groups. Here is just one I grabbed just now:




Remember it's this same company that tells people it's ok to bore out their 06-08 blocks to change the IMS and they think it's ok for all that debris to go into the engine. They've conveniently removed off their YouTube channel that showed all the metal going in, but I'm sure many of you here have seen it. And what about the guy who had his engine fail after doing it - they said it couldn't have been the procedure. Engine had to be rebuilt and we fixed his block and offer this as a service with a part to correct the block even.

And since everyone's memory is quite short these days, I'd like to point out that Porsche's own replacement IMS bearing is a ceramic hybrid, just like our IMS Retrofit:

DSC800

Wow, name calling right from the start, please, I'm a sensitive guy.

I believe the EPS bearing picture was posted in January? I just looked and don't see it on Hartech's page now. But the bearings and cage are intact. It does actually appear that other debris ran through it and it did not fail catastrophically as ball bearings do. That's what the inventor of the retrofit always says about all the ceramic bearing failures. It is NEVER the bearing failing, it is always "something else" or "installed wrong". There are "thousands" of cylindrical/roller bearings installed too, yet, aside from industry competitors (LN), there are no customer reported failures (unlike ceramic bearings) that I have found. If there are, please direct me. Since the cylindrical/roller competition doesn't require a prequalification and any unqualified wannabe mechanic like me can just plop them in, shouldn't there be 100's of failures by now?

Regarding the Porsche ceramic bearing that WAS offered, my memory is not so short. This is the one that Mr. Raby stated it was offered for a very short period of time several years ago and he bought two, correct? This doesn't help the case for Ceramic bearings. Porsche saw fit to pull it and not offer it to their customers or dealers and actually preferred to not offer any bearing at all. Even their dealers won't install any bearing as a mater of course. A patent infringement perhaps? I don't recall that being discussed as an issue either.

I ask you, if your ceramic bearings are so great, then why the ****-poor warranty? Seriously, 24 months and 24k miles, with that kind of faith why bother with any warranty. You can't even warranty it for the mileage life of a clutch!

I ask you, why do you offer your RND roller bearing if they are so inherently bad by design and again with the poor warranty. it has the same thrust control as the others (regardless of your claim), not that it ever was a thrust application. Any "pre-qualification" required for the RND bearing? The competition doesn't require it, despite your finding one failure claim that is suspect.

To summarize: LN bearings equal maximum price, maximum labor installation, poorest warranty and, in case of failure, blame it on some other part that failed (but you do get a cute sticker).

Charles Navarro

I never said it was on Hartech's page. There is an IMS group and several engine building groups on FB with pictures like these taken from engines that were previously fitted with the EPS bearing. I'll be the first to say that maybe they were installed wrong or there was debris, however, on every single one you can see where the bearing has machined the flange and all of them have wear internally, point to a design flaw (Lee from Hartech has pointed out) knowing there have been several major changes to the EPS bearing since it was released. These are the newest revision:







The above pictures were from an engine sent to us by Speed Sport Tuning several years back. Engine was a rebuilt Vertex engine that they put in (at the customer's request) and engine failed in the first lap and no warranty.

Likewise, the engine that Vertex themselves bored out the case to replace the 06-08 bearing also failed and they said it was not the result of the work they did to the engine and we had to fix the block and the engine had to be rebuilt:





These are people who aren't on the forums, so you'll never see them here.

Although I have seen a few claims of failed Single Row Pro and Classic Dual Row IMS Retrofit bearings, I have yet to actually see one returned back to LN so I can send it to the bearing manufacturer for a failure analysis and actually verify is there was indeed a failure. What failures there have been (which I have never denied) have been are classic single row which was replaced by the Single Row Pro in 2014 once Jake came up with a procedure and the tools to be able to install the dual row bearing in its place. We have not made or sold a Classic Single Row IMS Retrofit since 2014, and all of these are beyond their service life at this point.

We supply IMS Retrofits and IMS Solutions to dealerships around the world. Most, if not all, the Porsche dealerships in Chicago purchase and install them, and were some of the first to do so. In fact, it was Porsche dealerships who jumped on board first since they knew it was a problem. I had a friend who worked as a tech and there was an internal discussion board for techs across the dealer network and the IMS was a hot topic there for years.

The 2/24 warranty we provide is standard aftermarket which goes for the clutch, flywheel, and every other component anyone purchases from Pelican or any other source, expect Porsche. Porsche doesn't offer a warranty on any part that isn't installed by a dealership. If the warranty is your selling point, the IMS Solution has a 5/60 and has been an option from us along side the retrofit for over 7 years.

SSF Auto Parts was getting requests for a roller bearing kit and was not happy with the other bearings offered. Jake and I had evaluated a roller bearing option when developing the IMS Retrofit and had a bearing already tested and picked out in the eventuality that we went down that route. Again, this is public knowledge and is probably on another post I previously made in this thread.

The RND bearing has the same pre-qualification requirements. Not every engine should have the IMS bearing replaced. I stand by that. The Porsche shop next door to us fails about 50% of the cars that come in for a bearing.

Quote:

To summarize: LN bearings equal maximum price, maximum labor installation, poorest warranty and, in case of failure, blame it on some other part that failed (but you do get a cute sticker).

I'll repeat there are many shops installing bearings in cars that should not be fitted with a new bearing and an equal number of shops that aren't qualified to be doing this work in the first place, given the number of phone calls we get. Again that's why we have the pre-qualification and registration requirements. If someone isn't happy with this, it's a free world and there are other options out there that might be better for you.

And if you decide to go with an EPS, know what you are getting, like with boring out the block to change your 06-08 ims. The claims they made in their ads and on their website are downright false:

"The cylindrical bearings have over 12 times the load capacity of other ball bearing solutions making the EPS IMS bearing the clear choice."

When in fact, here are the load ratings of all the popular bearings used:

• The factory single row 6204 bearing a dynamic load capacity of 2900# with thrust max load rating of 1450# (Factory single row & Pelican IMS)
• The NJ or NU204 cylindrical bearing has a dynamic load capacity of 3750# with thrust max load rating of 375#
• The custom dual row ceramic hybrid bearings used in both the Single Row Pro and Classic Dual Row IMS Retrofit has a dynamic load capacity of 4000# w/ thrust max load rating of 2000#.
• The RND RS Roller's NUP204E bearing has a 5800# dynamic load capacity w/ thrust max load rating of 580#.

A deep groove ball bearing as currently used in the IMS Retrofit can take up to 50% of the dynamic load in thrust; a traditional cylindrical roller bearing with thrust control can only take up to 10% of the dynamic load in thrust.

Flat6 Innovations

I'll weigh in here just a little bit. DSC800 did make some good points.

Going back to the beginning, the reason why I walked away from all the association with sales of bearings, and etc was due to warranty. Charles and I had a bit of a disagreement about this, because I hate warrantees and didn't think that any of the products should have one- not even the IMS Solution. A good reason was I knew that a group of people would buy the product just to get a warranty, and in my experience I wanted to steer clear from that particular group of people. In those days the IMSR was young, and most people didn't even know that the process could be done. Those were the days here on RL where someone would say that they had their bearing replaced, and people would tell them that doing such a thing was impossible.
I believed that people should understand that this procedure was not something that the factory stood behind, and did not authorize.

I wanted no warranty, and instead of fighting over it, I considered my part was done, and I agreed to only continue training the Certified Installers of the products. The Certified Installer program was another that led to some challenges in the early days, since my idea was to only allow Certified Installers to perform the IMSR jobs. This would mean that 100% of the engines would need pre- qualification, and bearing registrations. I had limited experience with retail, and had only developed, and sold engines, so I parted ways with things and LN took it all over, including taking over my Aircooled engine retail parts division.

I cannot think of a single ceramic bearing failure that has occurred when the product was installed by a Certified Installer, the product was registered and the pre- qualification was carried out. I created this because I knew at the time that these engines had 24 modes of failure (now 31 modes) and that many of them would be confused as an IMSR issue, or would inflict damages to the IMSB that was fitted. I wanted to avoid issues and finger pointing at all costs, so going through hassles with the installs would just be a part of that. I still believe this today, and will only allow these same Certified Installers of IMSR products to perform remote fitments of Flat 6 Innovations engines as part of the "Premier" program. We make sure these installers are constantly re- trained, and that they have the right tools to do their jobs. I will be scheduling a training seminar with them to go over bore scoring evaluations in the next few weeks, since we have identified some additional indicators in the recent past that some of them have yet to be exposed to.

Most of the time, if an engine fails in N. America, it gets reported here at some stage. This includes those who have other bearing kits installed, so I have seen a fair share of failures that have gone unreported on these groups. The Certified Installers have removed a host of the opposing products that were in process of failing, usually leading to the engine needing to come apart. It is pretty much like anything, if you do enough, install enough, or build enough, mechanical things are going to fail. Those that have small numbers of installations have limited exposures to the chances of failures, due to the law of averages. When something has been installed in tens of thousands of engines all over the world, by installers of all backgrounds, many of which don't even read the instructions, you can expect a number of issues. This is proven by the number of engines that fail pre- qualification, and have VINs flagged by Certified Installers, only to go elsewhere to have the job done, with the VIN popping up again in the registration queue, clearly retrofitted when it had an issue that should have DQ'd it, and it did with a certified Installer who is mandated to follow the procedure verbatim.

Again, I'll state that I don't know of a single issue where an IMSR was fitted by a Certified Installer, then went on to have a failure. A good example of this is the 740 IMSR bearings of all flavors that were installed here at FSI, before I stopped doing the work to focus only on building engines. Of these 740, none have failed. 100% of these were pre- qualified, and proven to be healthy, and keep in mind the oldest bearing fitments in the industry are included in this, since we did the very fist commercially installed IMSR procedures here, even before anyone knew it could be done.

This is exactly why I was so focused on no warrantees, and only having Certified Installers able to source the components for the retrofit. I believe the installer needs something to lose to be fully vested in what they are doing. As time went on the IMSR procedure has become like a brake job, with technicians racing to get the work done as fast as possible, not as well as possible. This poses two issues:
1- Technicians are paid on commission in lots of cases, and no matter how long it takes them to do a job, they get paid the labor rate that the job calls for. The universally accepted time for a classic IMSR is 10 hours of labor, so if the tech can do the job in 5 hours, he still gets paid for 10 house, and he has 5 hours left over to quickly get to the next job. This is how some techs can get paid for 70 hours of work per week, when they only work 40 hours. This promotes neglect, no matter what repair job is being carried out, and it is a horrible part of the automotive repair industry- yet, perfectly legal, and universally accepted nationwide.

2- Technicians don't want to find issues that "down" the engine from an IMSR. If they do look hard enough to find an issue, that means that they are losing 10 hours of labor for their paycheck just because they did the right thing. This means that issues where debris is found in the oil/ filter can be conveniently "overlooked" or "weren't there when the IMSR was done" do happen. Shop owners also lose when an engine is DQ'd, so they don't push the process very hard unless they have something to lose, like a Certified Installer rating that they had to work for, and can instantly lose with just one infraction.

As time goes on I have seen shops like "truck services", Midas Muffler, and even full service car washes installing these products. This is because the process has become widely popular, and people are looking for the cheapest price for a retrofit to be carried out. They go with a more expensive, and proven product thinking that matters most, then they have it haphazardly installed, compromising everything.

Also lots of dealers do, and have installed these bearings, of all flavors. None of them are Certified Installers, and never will be. In fact one dealer sent out a mailer to all of their customers that basically said that their engine would fail without being retrofitted, and this was when the only bearing kit available came from LN. We still have a copy of it around here somewhere. Dealers still do this work today, and one contacted us last week to get some paid technical consulting when the engine "skipped time" during an IMSR procedure, when they failed to lock the camshafts.

Finally, what I have learned is people don't complain when their choice to go a cheaper/ less proven route does not work for them. They know that if they go public with a failure of a product that was cheaper, and haphazardly installed, that the community will likely tell them that they got what they paid for. I have seen this happen with engines over, and over again. If I have an issue the buyer can instantly get traction in a group because the engine was the most proven, best, and most expensive thing they could buy. If and when it has an issue people try to prove that with this one issue there's others that are viable. By the opposite token, the cheap guys that have failures over, and over again don't get the press, because buyers don't want to admit that the following was correct, and they should have bought a better engine.

People know how the forums work. They will only admit that they made a mistake IF they bought the more universally accepted, more expensive, and more exclusive product. If they go cheap, they admitting in a public forum that they made a mistake that was driven by their wallet, and they don't want to admit this. In private I see this happen all the time, with both engines, and products that are not limited to Porsche's. As a product gains traction, and becomes exclusive, more and more people want to support that its not the only way to go. They are fast to support something else that is cheaper, easier to install, and has a better warranty, but they are slow to admit that their decision didn't work out for them. Often the threads go quiet, the bragging stops, and the person climbs under a rock, only to privately share their story with shops that document it, and get it back to me. This is really good when the person chooses a username that's the same as their Gmail address.

Failures are happening, and there's more to the story than what is posted to forums.

I just figured I'd weigh in here with some back story, and some facts from my perspective. I am positive that if all shops doing this work were bound to the same constraints with IMSR procedures that the Certified Installers have, that no issues would have been experienced with any IMSR procedure, given the product is replaced at the specified intervals, and serviced as directed..