Another one bites the dust - probable IMS issue

[Boxtaboy]

Originally Posted by timothy

"My IMS failed and all I got was this lousy t-shirt ... and a massive repair bill"

In good will, did Porsche cover half the cost of the tee shirt at least?

[coreseller]

Another IMS failure on a '04 Anniversary Edition w/60k reported on Renntech this morning, ouch:

http://www.renntech.org/forums/index.php?/topic/32741-intermediate-shaft-failure-need-2004-anniversary-engine/?

[Perfectlap]

wasn't there a forum member here who had two IMS failures one being the 550 anniversary car?

[Boxtaboy]

Originally Posted by Perfectlap

wasn't there a forum member here who had two IMS failures one being the 550 anniversary car?

Yep, his name is Dennis, and I know him personally. He ended up selling the 04 SE for a 350z. One was a base 986 that failed on him, and then the 04 SE. He had enough. After 2, I don't blame him.

[Perfectlap]

He's got to be in the smallest % of 986/996 owners. Not only did he have one which I'm guessing is probably what less than what 10% of all owners? He then got hit by lightning a second time. That's gotta be single digits.
But the really amazing part is that he signed up for Porsche number two.
The number of people who took that step must be in the fractions of 1%.

I dunno...I put all this down to cars making horsepower gains way too quickly.
I'm not really familiar with Ford and Chevy engines but all European cars have some engine issues. from the 60's to the 80's horsepower didn't really go up by leaps and bounds. Look how little HP an M3 had even in the early 90's, what less than 240 hp? The standard Carrera after decades and decades didn't cross the 300 hp mark until 2005. Yet every year these guys keep finding more and more HP. I don't think the engineering was keeping up in terms of engine integrity.

[coreseller]

Originally Posted by Perfectlap

He's got to be in the smallest % of 986/996 owners. Not only did he have one which I'm guessing is probably what less than what 10% of all owners? He then got hit by lightning a second time. That's gotta be single digits.
But the really amazing part is that he signed up for Porsche number two.
The number of people who took that step must be in the fractions of 1%.

I dunno...I put all this down to cars making horsepower gains way too quickly.
I'm not really familiar with Ford and Chevy engines but all European cars have some engine issues. from the 60's to the 80's horsepower didn't really go up by leaps and bounds. Look how little HP an M3 had even in the early 90's, what less than 240 hp? The standard Carrera after decades and decades didn't cross the 300 hp mark until 2005. Yet every year these guys keep finding more and more HP. I don't think the engineering was keeping up in terms of engine integrity.

The IMS bearing problem is really just that, a bearing design flaw / wrong application problem. It really doesn't have anything to do with horsepower. You are right though regarding the leaps and bound horsepower numbers have taken. A 2010 Boxster S has more horsepower than the ground breaking 1978 911 Turbo.

[mts]

I was able to tow the car to a local Porsche tech who was unfortunately able to confirm that my initial diagnosis of an IMS failure was correct. Now I've got to figure out what to do. Initial thoughts are:

1) Let Jake Raby take a look and get his thoughts. Unfortunately he's on almost a 2 month backlog before he can even look at the car. It will be June before I can even tow it down there to get his thoughts. He's indicated even on a failure caught as quickly as mine was, it's probably less than a 50% chance the motor can be saved(debris in the engine everywhere). If it needs to be rebuilt, I would probably go ahead with the 3.2->3.6 upgrade, but if that is decided in June it will be approximately February 2011 before that work can be completed according to Jake. So I would be out out the cost of the rebuild plus being without the car for almost a year.

2) Do a new crate motor from Porsche and replace the bearing with one from LN before sticking it in the car. This is easily the option that gets the car back on the road the quickest and sadly may end up being one of my least expensive alternatives as well.

3) Call RUF in Dallas to see about doing one of their 3.6 conversions. I would insist on the IMS bearing being upgraded to the LN one before installation. This is probably the most expensive route, but gets the car back on the road in a reasonable amount of time. Anyone dealth with them before?

4) Take my chances on a salvage motor. Frankly this isn't too appealing to me. If my pristine 20k motor failed, how much faith would I really ever have in one that I have no history on?

5) Sell the car as a rolling chasis for whatever $$ I can get and get the fark away from Porsche all together. It's a pristine 550 Edition, but even with that I would probably be very luck to get $10k for it.

By far my preference would be to deal with Jake. I've talked to him on the phone a couple times and he really seems like a good guy. However, the timing just stinks there and really is a testament to how many problems these cars have that he's booked so far out.

Decisions, decisions.