Kablamo! - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

stuttgart46 · 12-08-2008, 04:40 PM

After years of owning and drivng these great cars, my'99 had an IMS failure last Thursday. I was taking my son to school and it let go without any warning. We have had 8 Boxsters and I was starting to think that I was impervious to the D chunk or IMS failures. This is the first engine problem I have had with any of them. I'm not sure where I go from here other than to park the car and think about it for a little while. I still have my Spec Boxster to enjoy and I hate to spend fun money on my street car but I don't plan on it sitting for too long.

blinkwatt · 12-08-2008, 05:23 PM

IMS failure or cylinder sleeve wall failure? How many miles are on it?

rick3000 · 12-08-2008, 05:57 PM

I'm sorry to hear that happened, hopefully you won't lose too much on it.
If you don't mind could you post some more information like the year, mileage, and if the car had been redlined. 1 in 8 is pretty good at 12.5%, and beats what people speculate the IMS failure rate to be, at about 20%.

RandallNeighbour · 12-08-2008, 06:27 PM

I'm in Houston as well. Oh that sucks.

You should consider a Raby rebuild from Flat 6 Innovations (site sponsor).

I've got a great indy if you need one in Houston. PM me for info.

stuttgart46 · 12-09-2008, 04:57 AM

Thanks guys.
It has just over 80K miles on it. We pulled the #1 spark plug and scoped as far down as possible. It looks nasty. I wasn't driving the car hard and I don't think that I have ever taken this car to the redline. It's a street car and there aren't many places around here to drive the car hard. I'm still shocked that there was no smoke and no oil trail when it let go.
I have been talking to Jake and he's a great resource for rebuilding and improving these motors.

RandallNeighbour · 12-09-2008, 06:12 AM

Now this could be complete conjecture on my part, but I actually think redlining our motors regularly is a healthy practice. Call me emotional or irrational, but my motor actually sounds happy when it's wound up to 6500 rpm

gregdacat · 12-09-2008, 06:29 AM

Okay I am confused. I thought the early models were not supposed to have IMS issues because that is before they changed design of the shaft/bearing.?

blue2000s · 12-09-2008, 06:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gregdacat

Okay I am confused. I thought the early models were not supposed to have IMS issues because that is before they changed design of the shaft/bearing.?

That's a misconception, as is the 20% IMS failure rate. There is no indication that IMS failures are more common on later cars.

Lil bastard · 12-09-2008, 09:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blue2000s

That's a misconception, as is the 20% IMS failure rate. There is no indication that IMS failures are more common on later cars.

I'm not so sure... While certainly any mechanical part can fail, and a relative few early cars suffered IMS failure, it seems to have become an 'issue' with the later ('03-?) cars. A sampling of the various forums will probably bear this out.

As far as 20% being the failure rate, I doubt this (at least with the avg. mileage of the boxster 'fleet' to-date), that sounds more like the RMS failure rate.

Samson · 12-09-2008, 11:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RandallNeighbour

Now this could be complete conjecture on my part, but I actually think redlining our motors regularly is a healthy practice. Call me emotional or irrational, but my motor actually sounds happy when it's wound up to 6500 rpm

Taking any well maintained and properly warmed up car to the redline is not a problem. It's the manufacturer defined operating range. Ever heard of an Italian tuneup?

It's when you go significantly over the maximum safe engine speed that expensive things start to happen... but that's why there are rev limiters.

And 6500? My redline is 7200.

blue2000s · 12-09-2008, 12:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samson

Taking any well maintained and properly warmed up car to the redline is not a problem. It's the manufacturer defined operating range. Ever heard of an Italian tuneup?

It's when you go significantly over the maximum safe engine speed that expensive things start to happen... but that's why there are rev limiters.

And 6500? My redline is 7200.

I agree here, redline is set by the manufacturer as the safe operational engine speed limit.

The 2.5 is 6500 redline, others is 7200.

edevlin · 12-09-2008, 01:43 PM

Sorry to hear that your engine is toast, let us know what you decide to do about the car.

Ed