[Jake Raby]

I just finished my 90 mile test drive on tommy986's Boxster and after one more dyno session he'll be dropping by to pick the car up..

What we experienced with his Boxster was something I have never seen before. When the IMS bearing flange was pulled, immediately the aroma of scorched oil was present and thats something I have never seen from an engine that wasn't already compromised from the failure.

The IMS bearing was in the very beginning stages of failure and had recently been compromised, filling the IMS tube with fresh engine oil. The permanent lubricant used in the IMS bearing had been scorched and released into the area within the inner race of the IMS flange and thats what smelled so horrible.

The IMS flange that supports the inner race of the IMS bearing was nasty black and clearly shown signs of metal transfer from the inner race that from time to time had been spinning on the flange as the bearing was beginning to seize. This is the first sign of a bearing beginning to fail! When the inner race begins to spin against the flange it isn't long before it is "welded" into place and the big boom happens.

Tommy drove to my facility from several hundred miles away and was staying just a few miles up the road. I called him as soon as the bearing was extracted, before it had even been cleaned up to come witness first hand what was going on. He saw it and smelled it first hand.

When we did our "Pre IMS procedure Dyno evaluation" Tommy's car was down on power, only making around 212HP from a Boxster S when the numbers should be 220-225 at minimum. I have the car strapped down on the dyno now for it's "post IMS procedure dyno evaluation" and it'll be interesting to see if the car makes more power with no other changes. This will illustrate just how close to the edge of failure Tommy's engine was. This is why we always perform pre and post IMS dyno evaluations.

This bearing and the way it was failing will provide very beneficial data for our program.

Tommy stated the car was making a slight knocking sound at idle after being ran hard and now that sound is gone... That may have been the IMS, its hard to tell. This is further proof that the IMS failure can strike without an IMS bearing leak or any other symptom. Tick. Tick. BOOM!