Neto

I know that the purpose of it is to hold the stud that supports the IMS bearing

but I have always wondered why did Porsche did this? Porsche doesn't sell the bearing by itself, they only sell the entire IMS shaft with the bearing already in place... Then why didn't they just enclose the entire assembly inside the case with an internal stud support... What was Porsche's theory on doing the flange, maybe it was for doing inspections of the bearing? Or did they predicted that the bearing would need to be changed as a service ($$$) but later backed out for some reason?

Obviously having a built in flange in the case would not benefit us since we would need to do an entire re-build to change the bearing but it would reduce the flange oil leak problem.

I am not starting another IMS bearing topic, this is just a discussion topic on just the flange

joe-1972

Flat6 Innovations

You are a wise person..

If the original IMSB was never intended to be serviced, (hence no part #, and no maintenance interval, as well as no IMS extraction tools, or procedure from the factory) then there's zero reason to create the perfectly sized access port to allow for a retrofit to occur.

Especially when adding that access port costs money...

5CHN3LL

I bet in the long run, it would have been cheaper to machine those oil galleries into the M96 blocks...hindsight, 20/20, etc.

Flat6 Innovations

Lots I could say here....

JayG

All seriousness aside, You are joking, right ?

fpena944

I see this as the situation that probably played out:

Engineer: This engine has a weakness we've identified
Accountant: A fix is not in the budget
Engineer: (walks away and thinks to himself) "Well if they won't let me fix it now then at least I can sneak an access port into the design so we can address it later"

Of course later doesn't happen until the aftermarket picks up the slack.