Flat 6 Innovations saved my motor

[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!

[Jaxonalden]

Jake,

Do you have a satelite location in Kansas? I thought I heard that you did because it would be a shorter ride from OKC for my IMS retrofit.

[Jake Raby]

Nope.. Just one location.
Tommy is on the way home with the car now, he sure was appreciative of what we saved him!

[Motobob]

Can you remind me of the cost? Bob

[jhandy]

He saved my car as well. I was not as close to death as yours, but now I can drive it with out waiting for the hammer to fall.


Extended warrenty even payed for it.

[Dragonwind]

I had Musante Motorsports in CT put the bearing in mine. At 87k it was still in okay shape with just the early signs of play but possibly would have given out in another 10-15k perhaps. Now I don't worry about it and tell other folks to get theirs done with their clutch job!

[Jake Raby]

For the procedure to be carried out at our facility the charges total 3,500.00 as a flat rate, no matter how simple or difficult your particular extraction may be for 6 speed cars. Tiptronic cars vary rate wise.

This includes:
- Pre- procedure chassis dyno evaluation
- IMS Bearing retrofit kit with installation
- Updated OE RMS with installation
- Full OE Clutch kit with release bearing, clutch disc and pressure plate
- Engine Oil service with 110.00 credit toward engine oil of the customer's choice.
- Post- procedure Chassis Dyno evaluation
- FSI door decal stating the serial number of the bearing retrofitted for proof the procedure has been carried out. We also log each engine number and VIN in our database
- Post procedure test drive, usually 80-100 miles to ensure no leaks are present and that the engine performs as expected. (I do these personally)

In some instances the work can be done cheaper by other shops, but others charge more because they hit "problems". We don't do this because we mutually developed this procedure with LN Engineering and know it better than anyone.

We keep it simple with one flat rate charge, of course we can apply more updates while we have your car on premises and there are a few options we are adding as more flat rate services, like lifter updates, variocam wear component replacement, timing chain replacement and tensioner replacements.

The cheapest I have seen a shop do this work was 2,000.00 but that didn't include a new clutch kit. I will not do this procedure without replacing the clutch arrangement because they are all worn out or very close. In all of 2009 we didn't pull a single clutch that was acceptable to reuse.