BED997

I came across this - might be of interest. They say the following:
http://tunersmotorsports.com/

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Vehicle Application for (DOF): Porsche Vehicles manufactured between 1997 to 2008 with water cooled engines excluding Turbo, GT2, GT3 and Carrera GT.

The patent-pending Intermediate Shaft Bearing Direct Oil Feed System (DOF) for all MY97-05 M96 and M97 Porsche engines to assist in preventing possible IMS failures. Designed and developed by Miguel (Mike) Potolicchio of TuneRS Motorsports.

This is a cost effective way to help protect against IMS failure, using the original bearing. It is also not nearly as labor intensive as replacing the original bearing with a ceramic bearing. The system, however can also be used when replacing the bearing with the ceramic ball bearing version for added insurance.

WILL THE DOF KIT WORK FOR NEWER ENGINES THAT HAVE THE LARGER IMS BEARING?
Answer: Yes. Since the IMS bearing on the newer style engines is much larger and cannot be replaced unless you dismantle the engine, the DOF provides the perfect solution for these later engines.

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I have no affiliation, and have no idea if it is commercially available/ price. But the fact that it works on cars that have the larger bearing without a teardown may be of interest. This looks very similar to the LN product.

IslandS52

link doesn't work

BED997

go here at click on TRS Development. I can't figure out how to make the link work.

http://tunersmotorsports.com/

alexb76

I am confused it states first this is for MY97-05 only, then later says it can work for newer IMS cars? Doesn't make sense to me.

Ben Z

Tunersmall is a really well-respected facility, they do a lot of race building and have their own race team as well. What this is is a replacement IMS flange with a pressure oil feed, very similar to the one used with LN's "IMS Solution". The difference is, LN's product replaces the ball bearing with a journal bearing, whereas the Tunersmall product just pressure-feeds the ball bearing.

According to LN's site:
Clearly there is a disagreement between these two entrepreneurs, both of whom have stellar creds re Porsche engines. Since I'm not an engineer I won't offer any opinion.

Mspeedster

IMHO, the larger bearings have shown to be much better and failures are relatively rare. So why mess with it? I'd rather take my chances and take it up with Porsche if the worse were to happen. But once the IMSB area is modified, all bets are off if one were to make a claim.

Luxter

This page:

http://tunersmotorsports.com/?page_id=103

Shows 22mm nut, so it is for latest non-replaceable, late 2005 - 2008 IMSB.
The text also indicates so.
Interesting, still have to remove bearing seals (at least the one facing flywheel) to get oil flow into bearing.
Wonder where they tap to oil supply?

Answer to my own question:

utkinpol

It is an interesting technology, is there anybody here who got it done?

BED997

I wonder if Tune RS specializes in the Cayman? - I don't see any 997s in the installation photos.

sullivas

I believe the oil feed comes from an adapter you put on the oil filter housing. Then the filter screws into the new adapter.
Actually I think that's the LN solution sorry!

CORSASCHNELL

Do we have any more than 5 owners here with IMS failure?

dw.metro

Or, has anyone with the larger bearings (2006 and newer) had an IMS failure?

Jack667

As of now, the poll thread at the top of the page shows 37 failures out of 577 who responded, or 6.4%

Mspeedster

Poll is not accurate for the 997. If you actually track down each of the 37, you'll see that quite a few actually refer to failures on Boxsters, Caymans and 996 models.

Furthermore, very few reported are 06-08 997 models. I haven't checked recently, but the last time I looked it was around 3. The thread's too long now to look at each response so I don't bother. I'm confident enough with the larger bearing to where it's just not a worry anymore.

Jack667

Good to know. I knew there were some inaccuracies, but I didn't think it was that bad. Makes me feel a bit better...