Flat6 Innovations

Very true.. Otherwise the bullet that has been reloaded is of much larger caliber than the last.

Cut a corner here, and you'll pay for it.

alpine003

+2

gnat

Nope. In Ahsai's or AWDguy's build thread there is a good pic of where/how the debris can get caught up in some areas and never get flushed out.

Much like a clot in your blood stream it just hangs out until one day it finally breaks away. Much the same result of throwing a clot too...

The only proven method for getting it all is a complete disassembly and cleaning.

Flat6 Innovations

+3

Finished my evaluation of this one about 10 minutes ago.

Single row failed, AFTER the IMS tensioner failed, making the bearing failure secondary collateral damage.

In this case the bearing failed only because the shaft the timing chain loads went through the roof after the IMS tensioner failed.

Tertiary damages include cylinders being scored deeply on all 6 holes, as well as the trauma of the bearing failing taking out the front support console for the IMS shaft assembly. It did not seize the shaft to the plain bearing, but the vibration and shock from the bearing failing snapped it off.

These are the reasons why resurrecting an engine after an IMSB failure is often times a total and complete wasted effort.

Enjoy... Not all IMS bearing failures are IMS bearing failures. This one was a classic.




Classic failure from collateral damages..



Front console suffered damage from trauma and vibration from tensioner and bearing failures.



Even though trauma snapped off the journal of the console, it still rotates freely on the plain bearing end of the IMS assembly



Deep cylinder scoring. Nickies cylinders will solve this.



Global cylinder scoring from debris laden splash oil

alpine003

How did the oil/filter look for this kind of carnage?

NIACAL4NIA

The mechanic and owner of a Porsche Audi shop in San Diego owns a 2003 996 with over 140k miles on the original IMS bearing. He has never seen an IMS failure in his shop and all the ones he upgraded were in great condition. Mine was in perfect condition at 90k miles but upgraded during clutch on a 2002 996.

jaetee

Ultrasonic Engine Cleaning

mjberning

2002 C2 Cabriolet with 27500 and original OEM bearing

No noticeable issues, crystal clear oil which I change every 3 months since I became owner

Contemplating preventative IMS upgrade but expect the bearing will be intact.

My research on cars.com and auto trader.com searching for all Porsche 996s built between 2002 and 2004 show approximately 7.2% of all vehicles for sale have an IMS upgrade. Either a) the ones with upgrades are being held longer, b) not many are upgrading theirs or c) those statistics basically back up what is being used too estimate the number of failures. The problem being most bearings are upgraded before they fail and I see a lot of owners flip their vehicle after the IMS has been upgraded. That makes it look like the owners either have little faith in the IMS upgrade or they want to make a short term profit off of it.

My choices are

1) EPS Roller bearing with splash oil only
2) EPS Roller bearing with oil feed
3) LNE Single Row Pro
4) LNE Solution

If i have to change clutch every 50 to 75K miles then the LNE solution makes little sense because I doubt will ever drive it long enough to need 3 clutch jobs to break even on the IMS solution cost vs replace the bearing each clutch job be it a RND roller, LNE Single Row Pro or EPS roller.

Anyone have issues with any of these options other than the bearing sales people whom I would expect would defend their products.

Flat6 Innovations

If you plan to keep the car long term, then I'd invert the table of your considerations. There's only one IMS Solution. 👍

gnat

Unfortunately there have also been bad actors that take the car in to do the swap, find that the bearing is already failing, finish the swap, and then pawn it off on someone that believes all is good because it has the new bearing.

There have been enough of those now that a car for sale with a fresh bearing change is a big red flag in my book.

If this car is a keeper for you, then Jake is right. It's less about breaking even over 3 clutches than it is about solving the core problem. If done by a certified installer the process will leave you confident that you have a solid motor with minimal risk of the major issues.

With a sub-30k milage it really is a prime candidate for the Solution since it should have so much life ahead of it.

Charles Navarro

Thank you! It has indeed failed already. We would call this a pre-qualification failure.

If someone chooses to replace the bearing still and take their chances, please don't put in an IMS Retrofit or IMS Solution. I don't want to take that call when the replacement bearing fails because it shouldn't have been installed in the first place.

relinuca

'99 Mk I w/83K miles. Just had the "alphabet" replaced. The old dual row IMSB still seemed "like new". Also, the original clutch appeared to have another 20K miles life remaining.

So maybe I spent money too soon. But now I sure sleep better.

relinuca

Atrain13

I read your post and a single row bearing is not an upgrade. I speak from experience of having a single row bearing detonate after only 4000 miles. My engine is going through complete rebuild and adding the LN Solution. Has this been the original option, even spending 3k...... The car would have been bulletproof and no need to wonder anymore. However, now I'm out 13k on a rebuild and am now having the LN Solition as part of the 13k rebuild. Reminder...... The IMS bearing was replaced 4K miles ago. Invest in your car. This IMS bearings gets zero oil and you expect it to last on the grease put inside it?!

ZX9RCAM

Is there a poll somewhere for owners whose IMS/RMS never gave any trouble (car had 123k on it), but had
a cylinder crack instead?

sammaw

No, mk2, 2002, 68k Miles