ltusler

These work great, just buy one if go to the full flow filter.

Flat6 Innovations

Employ the LN Spin On Filter Adaptor. Why? Because there's 100% of the oil being filtered, whereas the OEM filter will bypass oil to the main bearings at start up.

Then employ a "filter mag" too, along with a magnetic drain plug.

Imo000

Get one of those electromagnets from the scrap yard and bolt it to the sump. Nothing will pass by that sucker.

DaveCarrera4

Similar situation here. First oil change showed a few tiny flattened bits like yours. But went way too long on the oil change. Installed mag drain plug. Second and third oil changes at 3000 miles, no bits, and mag drain clean. Put on 16,000 miles, and 2 DE days, no issues. Just keep an eye on the filter is my advice.

2003 Carrera 4S Speed Yellow / 1955 356 Continental 1500 Rust Red

targa996

If old ims material got flushed out due to tracking and didn't cause major damage because the filter did its job, sure, just pull the filter a few times after 100 miles or so , to see if more material is coming ... If major damage is already done you are looking at cost of rebuild anyway at some point .. If not and the material goes away you got lucky and the filter did its job ....

dgjks6

No expert here.

But, when I went to get my IMS done (by a flat 6 certified guy) he said there was metal everywhere from the IMS and recommended a rebuild for 15K. He did replace the IMS bearing with the LN one, flushed the engine a couple times and gave it back to me. He said I would probably get some sort of premature engine failure. I changed the oil at 100 miles and saw a few flakes, then at 1000 miles and saw none. Now I am at 3000 and will probably do again soon.

My input. These flakes are not from the IMS. Why? You went two oil changes with none, so that was probably the original problem (that was solved with the original change) and 2 - they look nothing like the flakes I saw in my oil. Mine were much smaller.

I hate to add opinions to highly charged debates but take it for what it is. There are multiple causes for metal in the drain.

I would drive the car a little, change the oil again, and if still present then go on the hunt for the cause.

dgjks6

Oh, and there are other options besides a 15-25K rebuild. I did a lot of research. UFO motorsport will rebuild it for $7500 if you ship him a working engine or car. Read good things about them and talked with the guy. I decided against a rebuild but was and still am considering this.

Flat6 Innovations

Please PM me the name of this shop. Were they an IMS Solution Certified Installer?

6ta1

I didn't know we still had people with common sense on this forum, that's refreshing.

Or even better, comments that are actually helpful for the OP!

Flat6 Innovations

Debris thats clearly noted by the naked eye is not normal for any engine outside a piece of heavy equipment made by Caterpillar. In fact these particles are generally too large to even be detected by a standard used oil analysis, a particulate test is required. These tests are only offered by people like Caterpillar, who do them for us. That should help folks understand just how abnormal that these particles are when found within an engine.

My 88 Carrera is 2K miles from hitting 300k on the original engine thats never been gone into at all. When I carry out a service on it, dump the oil through a paint strainer and cut the filter open there's not a single particle thats notable to the naked eye, and there never has been, while I have owned the car.

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

If you have debris in the oil employ the items stated in this thread and purge the oil over and over again. DO NOT UTILIZE AN ENGINE FLUSH! This will simply break all the particles loose and feed them into the lifters and variable valve timing components, where they will be captured and retained with an impossibility of being purged. Lifters have only one way in and no way back out, unless debris passes through the piston area, which will not happen.

If we are carrying out an IMSR we take 1/2 day to qualify the engine for the procedure and take no chances. This may be the reason why we've carried out more than 350 IMSR procedures over the past 5 years and have never experienced a single failure or complication. Too many shops just want to throw the part in, make their money and send the car down the road like it just had a brake job. They don't care, because they didn't develop the technology, the tooling or the retrofit process. If it fails, they just blame it on the bearing.

KrazyK

Jake many of us believe you and know you are right but many on here continue to post the same denial nonsense repeatedly.

halik

Err didn't new/remanned engine end up shedding some eye-visible metal shavings during the break-in?

DaveCarrera4

I've seen lots of threads and filter pics showing the tiny metal bits. The big ones are flat and about 0.5 mm in diameter. I'm guessing a few showing up on the filter is somewhat normal for this engine. Maybe someone can pinpoint the usual source(s)?

2003 Carrera 4S Speed Yellow / 1955 356 Continental 1500 Rust Red

mklein9

After reading this thread and others, here is what I'm going to do.

First, often when there are strongly held opposing beliefs there is a lack of data that would make one or the other (or neither) a fact instead of a belief. That seems to be the case here. Do these engines normally shed particles or not? (see opposite answers from two people who have significant common experience: Charles Navarro: "These engines do generate LOTS of ferrous debris" and Jake Raby: in this thread: "Debris thats clearly noted by the naked eye is not normal for any engine outside a piece of heavy equipment made by Caterpillar."

We also seem to have a known case (DaveCarrera4) of an engine throwing ferrous particles just once, then doing fine afterwards for 16k miles including 2 DE events.

This is not to dispute anybody's opinions (how could I?) but to point out the difficulty of drawing certain conclusions. So it's simple, I have to treat this as a game of chance. BTW, my mechanic takes exactly that approach: "They're all a crap shoot" (and this before the metal finding last week). I think he's right. We take one step at a time and take the best path we can each step.

That said, I believe it's possible that the one significant thing I am doing differently after getting the car, after having put on better tires and Pagid Orange pads, is braking a lot harder, especially at a DE event. The DE event, new tires, and new pads all were done between the last two oil changes. The PO did not do DE events with this car, and says he had the car on the track "for about a dozen laps". PO is a longtime Porsche club sport racer and has organized the CS races for one of the PCA regions for many years, but ran his own race-prepared 70s era 911 for that. So, it is possible that I've put higher G forces on the car than it has had before, especially over the course of a full DE day. Given that there were two oil changes with no metal, then new tires, pads, and a DE day, and the next oil change had metal, I am willing to put some reasonable probability on that scenario.

However, I don't think we can say that the metal bits are from any particular source. See Charles' comment: "These engines do generate LOTS of ferrous debris". So a little debris may well be normal, and what I saw this time was an accumulation over 40k miles and 12 years that was knocked loose. Or not. Who knows authoritatively? Nobody, unless the engine is torn down to see. BTW, this car was stored winters, oil changed every year, so it could have had some rough starts over the years; I don't really know.

Now, should the engine be torn down as a preventative or diagnostic measure? No. Here is my reasoning. The engine is in a certain state right now (maybe good, maybe bad), whether I tear it down or not. I don't know the state unless I tear it down. What does a teardown buy me? Two things:

1) the knowledge of whether it's about to go or not -- a psychological comfort
2) some monetary savings by having to replace fewer parts

But the cost of the teardown could also be totally wasted, in which case I bought some comfort and little else. But there are a lot of other comfort items I can buy for $15k. (Yes, these costs are rough and may be wrong and excessive one way or the other; if someone would like to do a better calculation please do so...)

A teardown at this stage should be thought of as insurance. It limits the total cost to some number, say $15k. That's the cost of the insurance policy. What is the policy insuring against? A busted engine, which might cost $20k to rebuild or replace. This is not a very good insurance policy unless the chance of a blowup is nearly 100%. I'm going to guess that it's more like 1 in 3 or 1 in 4, in which case the insurance policy is much more expensive than the likely cost of doing nothing.

For example, say the chance of a busted engine is 1 in 3 from here forward (due to this issue). The policy costs $15k. The expected cost of letting it go is 1/3 * $20k + 2/3 * $0 = $6.7k. Under this scenario the cost of the policy is outrageously higher than doing "nothing" (which of course is not "nothing", see below).

The big leverage point is doing low-cost things to reduce the chance of a blowup. For this, monitoring particle production through either frequent inspections of the filter, drain plug, or something like the IMS Guardian appears to be the best option. A regular Durametric code pull of engine health may be another (I have one already so it's zero cost). The key is cost effective means of eliminating/confirming potential sources or detecting change. I'll start with filter monitoring and Durametric at initially frequent intervals, assuming that if something goes really badly wrong, it will be sooner rather than later.

Also using a spin-on oil filter might be a good option if there is debris, even small amounts.

Flat6 Innovations

Generally these engines create a lot of metal in the oil because they have 27 documented modes of failure. I can't think of a single one of those failures that have been documented that would not have metal laden oil associated with it in come capacity.

The spin on filter adaptor, mag drain plug and a filter mag are your best lines of defense. At the same time, when applying intervention metal laden oil can be a determining factor that must be taken seriously.