Imo000

The Made in Germany is upside down.

jaeastri

This is their repair tool, priced at $195. LINK

adcampo

Not sure, but from all I've read it seems like the LN is the go-to option. Although, I'm not sure if they've had any competition. This one looks like nice quality esthetically.

Imo000

These are some exciting times, as they should, alternative vendors are starting to pop up.

fanny bay r1

I think I might go with this one when I do my clutch!!

STAGGERWING

Although I'm a nubi here, I realize this IMS saga has been beat almost to death so just to keep that horse breathing , here's some feed .

In early Dec of 013 I spoke w/ a Charles Navarro of LN trying to get a better feel for this retrofit & how a DYI guy could buy the parts & tools . He gave me some prices & mentioned to wait if I could for April of 14 to look for a new "release" but wouldn't elaborate.
So that, plus having dealt w/ many bearings in the past, I have to believe there are not many , if maybe only one source for a quality ceramic bearing of these dimensions.
So it's possible this is the same brg LN offers but obviously a different distributor ??
I'm guessing someone on here knows if that is the case .

aviography

Jake had indicated in the past the ***** in the LN bearing is ceramic coated.

The FVD single row bearing is described or implied to be solid ceramic, and still no conclusive response if the dual-row is steel ***** or ceramic coated/solid.

Ahsai

Also this one has seals and not splash lubricated like the LN bearings are. Quite different. I'm also Interested to see any testing results.

STAGGERWING

Some ball bearing applications, depending on load, speed, heat, & other factors wouldn't last long w/ just oil, so I'm thinking Porsche engineering factored that in choosing the sealed greased brgs..
BTW, it's very simple to pop out the seals .

Bob

--------------------------------

01 C4

31 Ford cp chp & ch, 302/350

40 ******, 302/350

38 Ford cp, 327/350

57 Belair

62 356B --long ago

Ahsai

My point was they are quite different. Which is better? Who knows. I'm sure each vendor will say theirs the best. It boils down to who can provide some form of support/proof. Porsche did that with 100k+ 996s, 986s, etc. and some small % did fail. My personal believe is it's no where near 5% like a lot of ppl claim. 0.5% I can believe.

LN bearings are out there maybe in thousands of cars I think with no known failures that were not traced back to installation so far. Is that enough proof? I don't know. Maybe.

Btw, my IMSB is stock with 60k miles on it so you know my vote

DaveCarrera4

. I think the wait till April was for their dual row retrofit to a single row motor. It looks to me like FVD is a German entity with a sales house in FL. The product looks good to me. If one could improve the original design, it would include higher temp grease, better seals that are much less likely to fail, and of course high precision components and ceramic *****. Looks like the product being offered!

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

alpine003

Boy I'm glad you guys don't obsess over wheel bearings too.

mcbit

I had a wheel bearing fail on my 05 CTT at 55k miles, there was no 'solution' or 'retrofit' available so reluctantly I fitted OEM and surprisingly its still going strong 90k miles later.

Flat6 Innovations

Incorrect. Since day one all our developments have used solid silicon nitride *****, they've never been coated.

Canuck714

Jake,

I was just on your site looking up the spin on filter and oil line that feeds the bearing (in my mind, the correct fix) and i read the info for the IMS retrofit.

It talks about the cryogenically treated ceramic hybrid ball bearings made exclusively for LN Engineering.
What is a ceramic hybrid? I think this is what people are referencing when they say you use ceramic coating.