2003 Boxster S - prevent IMS failure?

[silver arrow]

Originally Posted by Brucelee

LOL there are Boxsters selling for under 10G. Also, there are 944s selling for 5G. All cars depreciate.

Wow, I wish they had been for sale when I was buying. I searched the entire east coast for a 2000-2002 2.7 in good condition and couldn't find one for 10k. Where are these located. I'll pick up an extra Boxster for that kind of money. That way if the engine goes, I'll have a spare.

[chitowndad]

I also contacted the Hartech guys and what he had to comment is below... The problem is that these guys are in the UK. The challenge is to find someone in a major US city that understands the issue like Hartech does. For the Chicago-land guys - I once saw a Porsche specialist on Irving Park Road East of Itasca (Roselle or Bensenville?). I'll try and Google it and contact them.

-Steve

----------- Explanation from the Hartech guys----------------------------------------
The main problem in our opinion is that the bearing is shrouded with a seal
so that it starts out with grease in it, but as it runs the grease is
gradually replaced by oil. This oil however does not get in and out very
quickly - so inside the bearing all the minute bits of metal that wear off
stay and form a kind paste while the oil is not circulating - but is
trapped - so gets hot. This combination can prematurely wear out the
bearing.

The bearing can be accessed by anyone removing a gearbox and flywheel and
then the bearing carrier and any garage could manage this.

The outer bearing seal could then be picked out of the way and the whole
things reassembled except to do it you should remove the two chain
tensioners and pull the intermediate shaft sideways to get the carrier back
in place. Now the original shaft on older rmodels has a cut out for a seal
and is very thin and weak - so it is a worry that in pulling it sideways -
it may damage the spindle and lead to a fatigue failure later - so we
replace it with a larger spindle (nothing clever). The bearing could be
replaced at the same time but we think, more often than not, the old one
will be OK with the better cooler oil feed.

[chitowndad]

This is the Porsche place in Bensenville that I was thinking of:

http://midwesteurosport.com/

Anyone have any experience with these guys?

Originally Posted by chitowndad

This is the Porsche place in Bensenville that I was thinking of:

http://midwesteurosport.com/

Anyone have any experience with these guys?

The place is a dump. Great race shop, but I would not take my personal car there.

[fragdude]

Toolpants,

You are obviously very savy mechanically, especially so with porsches, as it seems. I recently had a leaky RMS and IMS seal. My mechanic, who has been working on porsches specifically for over 25 years, says that porsche states that on the 911 you have to change the whole IMS flange, but on the Boxster you just change the seal (he then showed me a new flange w/ seal to point out the seal, which did have multiple ribs). Any particular reason for this? Is the new flange better in some other way? is it worth it going back there and questioning this?

It did seem strange that the 911 would get a new flange while the boxster just get a new seal since the engines are extremely similar.

[chitowndad]

This was the last reply that I got from the Hartech guy:

There is a later Porsche spindle carrier and spindle that may fit your
engine - a check with your engine number and Porsche parts department may
confirm and this may be a way to upgrade your particular engine within the
Porsche network over there - good luck.

[chitowndad]

bmusatti,
Sometimes the best looking shops have the worst mechanics! I tend to believe that the guys that race cars know the engine the best. I have had really bad luck with Toyota mechanics lately - they just don't try hard enough to solve the problem and want to fix things that don't need fixing...

-Steve