It's 2013 - any updates on IMS issues or cost of engines?

[Jake Raby]

I'll try to respond to everyone in the past few posts with just this one post. Steve first.

Originally Posted by smshirk

I don't believe Jake is making any claims as to an increase in power with this upgrade, but my car saw a significant increase in HP with this solution. Granted I have one of Jake's balanced HP 3.6 motors, but I had to have the final solution. The pictures of the parts above simply can't do the real thing any justice. Sliding the parts together in your hands and realizing there is no bearing to disintegrate and dribble particles into the motor is something I just couldn't resist. My first question to Jake was why didn't Porsche do this? The answer of course is $$$$$ like everything else, and in 96/97 Boxsters weren't cheap cars and the 2000 996 I had carried a sticker of over $80k. I didn't buy it new, but the guy still had the sticker. Porsche was broke though at the time, and the M96 project catapulted them back into profitability and left us with motors that were not engineered to previous Porsche standards. In spite of that I still want to drive a Porsche. The Boxster I drive to work everyday looks like any other 986S, but I can run with just about anything on any kind of surface and I know I can drive it every day for as long as I want to. This is my 3rd M96 car. MY only regret is that I didn't find out about about Jake when I still had my 97. It was silver with the red full leather and I could have made it look like the one in the Porsche museum for not a of of extra money. Not that I'm not happy with the rainforest green, it's not an everyday color, which is why I bought it, but the classic silver lightweight 97 would have been my first choice or maybe the 2004 GT silver special edition. I would recommend to anybody who likes his Boxster and wants to keep it, to seriously consider one of Jake's upgraded engines. It is worth every cent and then some. AS info, I have no affiliation other than I am a satisfied customer of flat6 that happens to be lucky enough to live about an hour from Jake's shop. I heard about the IMS development work on one of the forums, either here, or more likely Rennlist and jumped right in.

Steve, We don't claim more HP with the IMS Solution even though your car made a ton more power after the IMSS was installed and thats the first time we've ever seen that much of a power gain using the arrangement. In fact in one of our test cars we have had a stock IMSB installed and dynoed the car, then the same day ripped that bearing out and installed a standard LN IMSR bearing into the engine for a back to back test all for zero gain or loss of power on the dyno. We didn't stop there because we then pulled an all nighter and swapped the IMS solution into the engine for another back to back test and the gain was around 2HP. I consider this nil because its within the percentage for margin of error for the dyno. Basically that day we proved in a direct test that the IMSS didn't lead to any gain or loss of performance in either torque or HP. I would have loved it if we would have seen as much power increase with all the IMSS installs as we did with Steve's car, but that one did have a little twist added to it that has proven to be worth its weight in gold :-)

By design the IMS Solution should make more power because it is hydrodynamic and no materials contact each other as everything rides of a thin film of oil, unlike the factory ball bearing. Even though Steve's car did make A LOT more HP that could be felt in the driver's seat and certainly on the dyno we still won't claim any HP gain for the development. I'll post his dyno before and after on Monday.

Jake, I'm sure some of us on this forum could install this solution with your directions. Not that I'm in any hurry to replace my single row LNE bearing at this time, but some of us like doing this kind of work. Your thoughts?

No doubt. Its not rocket science and we have already produced a very detailed installation video that takes the installer through every step. This install process is the same as any standard IMSR procedure, except you add two steps for the external oil line.

But Charles and I are done with that sort of thing with these critical components.

I suppose a DIY'r could buy the IMSS from their local shop who can source it from their wholesale supplier who will be distributing these. This way the shop would have to offer the support and the DIY'rcan still do their own work, keeping us out of the loop. With this technology we are requiring the installers be instructed on how it works and things like webinars will be utilized to ensure the shops know the differences in the technology and what needs to be done to optimize the install. I have also added the install of the IMSS to my M96 Complete Engine Mechanical Class that I instruct for the Worldpac Training Institute. This will train 350-400 installers across North America about the install in 2013 alone. That will help a lot.
I have included a chapter in my M96 Engine Bible that goes over the install as well and includes a ton of info about how it works, this wil also share the info right from the source and will do so VERY SOON :-)

Charles and I want things to work and we don't want issues, we also don't want the phone to blow up with people making dumb mistakes, because those people get pissy when things don't go perfectly. I have moved completely away from selling retail for anything other than my engines, heck we don't even sell the IMS Guardian direct anymore, I gave all the sales to LN.

As above....

Raby, I take my hat off to you - that thing looks like it comes strait out of NASA.

Two pieces of it were drived directly from aerospace, to include the plain bearing material. That material is the ONLY thing that we found that would work for this and dozens of materials were tried over and over again.

I'll bet you spent a lot of time and effort to get it this far, & going on your past efforts over the last few years, I'm sure it will work exceptionally well.

YEARS!!!!!!!!!!! If I didn't think that it would work exceptionally well I wouldn't have left on a 7,000 mile trip with no tools and no spare parts back in September when Charles and I drove 6,788 miles to Edmonton AB Canada and back in 8 days on our IMS Solution success tour. All we had was a leatherman multi-tool. Flawless performance!

I hope you make a million $$.

What??? Could it be??? Someone who wishes well for someone else in today's world? Leave it to the Aussies, I love them! Won't find that here in the good ole USA.

FYI- The VERY FIRST time that Charles and I disassembled an M96 engine I saw the IMS bearing (that at that time did not have such a widespread bad reputation) and I said "Why the hell did the idiots use that sealed bearing? That needs to be a plain bearing." so then we designed a plain bearing and made it work. It was that simple.

It has taken YEARS to get it to market, heck I even wanted to perfect it and bring it to market BEFORE the ceramic ball bearing (current) IMS Bearing. Charles didn't want to do this since the ceramic bearing was already developed and tested, so we brought the ceramic bearing to market first. We had bad luck with the first three generations of the IMS Solution during testing, so we decided to go ahead and create the ceramic bearing kit and take more time to perfect "The Solution".

Thanks for your dedication.....

No need to thank me. I get paid to play all day long and do what I love to do in my own world. I've never worked a day in my life. Thank you for believing in us :-)

Jake, don't know if you will see this but will I be able to go to my Porsche dealer this summer and have this installed in my 2002 S? I was thinking of doing the LN bearing this summer as my 2002 has only 14,000 miles on it so I feel like I am driving a ticking time bomb as most failures seem to happen in early miles.

Probably not because it took 3 years for hard headed dealerships to install the current ceramic bearings. Then they only did it because the owners were bothering the hell out of them and begging for it. The very last person that I'd recommend to do this work would be a dealership technician.
A funny story occurred recently when the owner of an IMS Solution powered car took his 996 to a dealership to have a race alignment and the technicians saw the oil line going into the bell housing and they had no idea what it did. Pictures of that went viral throughout Porsche dealerships across the country and they even ended up coming back to us from Europe. The owner acted dumb and said he had no idea, that he just bought the car and didn't know that anything special was done to it. None of those people have ever figured out what the oil line was there for, to my knowledge. (LOVE IT!)

Thanks for all you do.

Thanks :-)

These are such fun cars to drive and your solution would only add ten fold to the enjoyment.

What this is all about is just driving without worry. The biggest advantage of the IMSS is an arrangement that simply has nothing to wear, replace or fail.

"One test is worth a thousand expert opinions."

[rondocap]

Jake and others:

It's fantastic to have such support for the engine on these cars.

But it does lead me, as being new to Porsche, to be fairly disappointed that such a large issue exists. All cars have wear and tear, but for a car to eat its own engine (and often at low mileage) is extremely unacceptable.

From my understanding, cost cutting at Porsche during rougher years is what lead to this unreliable fact.

By the way, I have a BMW and am active in that community and love cars; and I had never heard of this Porsche IMS issue until I started to more deeply research it. It's everywhere to be read, but for non-Porsche owners, you'd never know it. Disappointing.

[smshirk]

Originally Posted by rondocap

Jake and others:

It's fantastic to have such support for the engine on these cars.

But it does lead me, as being new to Porsche, to be fairly disappointed that such a large issue exists. All cars have wear and tear, but for a car to eat its own engine (and often at low mileage) is extremely unacceptable.

From my understanding, cost cutting at Porsche during rougher years is what lead to this unreliable fact.

By the way, I have a BMW and am active in that community and love cars; and I had never heard of this Porsche IMS issue until I started to more deeply research it. It's everywhere to be read, but for non-Porsche owners, you'd never know it. Disappointing.

Porsche has made mistakes with just about every major change in their development process. I think the jump to M96 is worse than most, but a top end rebuild for a 993, to turn out the check engine light to buy your tags can run you 12 to 14k.

BMW has had their share of engineering problems as well. The first E46 M3 engines were replaced by the boatload, but almost all of them tanked while under warranty. The "automatic" transmissions in those same M3s continue to fail at a high rate, and a dead battery can cost you several hundred dollars, a tow, and a software upload from the factory for every major system.

I only bring that up to highlight that all manufacturers have their issues. The real difference here as I see it is that Porsche refused to do anything about it but do an engine swap, and refused to provide any internal engine parts, tools, or even rudimentary failure rate data. Porsches' actions and non actions resulted in depreciation that has made the cost of entry into the used Porsche market to be possible to anyone. Jake and Charles have made it possible to be able to maintain those "inexpensive Porsches" if there is such a thing, to a high standard. We owe them more gratitude than I can describe and I hope Jake and Charles make more money than they can ever spend on these projects. Who knows what they'll come up with next?

[rondocap]

That's true about every manufacturer having issues, but Porsche seems too quiet on this subject. At least BMW had recalls for the HPFP issues and extended the warranties greatly.

[stephen wilson]

My opinion is that the failure rate is lower than some of the other Mfg. issues mentioned, so they were able to mostly ignore it.

[smshirk]

I disagree. They didn't ignore it. They setup an unprecedented process for re-manufacturing engines and were turning them around and doing engine replacements in every dealership in the world, save some of the smaller ones. Anyone that bought their car new usually got a new engine past the warranty period, especially if you were a repeat customer, or at the very least free labor. They wouldn't do anything for those of us who bought the cars used. That's not unusual for manufacturers but it sure contributed to the depreciation levels of the cars. The headlights didn't help either with the purist crowd, nor did the plasticcy interior, but every enthusiast considering buying a used Boxster or 996 became aware of the issues. In any event it's now possible to buy a really good modern used Porsche that can be daily driven for quite a bit less than a 30+ year old 911 that's not really a good DD for most people. I love those old 911s and still have an 80 model, but I wouldn't drive it back and forth to work 70 miles round trip every day, especially in the summer. Spending an extra few thousand to make the engine reliable is a pretty small price to pay IMO. Going further and making power the chassis is designed for is just gravy.

[Jake Raby]

Originally Posted by smshirk

Who knows what they'll come up with next?

Since our primary focus has shifted to the 9a1 DFI engines and Cayenne engine deficiencies theres not a lot left that we can develop for the M96/ M97. The focus with these engines is now to create resource materials, like my M96 Engine Bible and to instruct more classes to a growing number of technicians and enthusiasts that are dying for the info.

We started working with the M96 before anyone else to gain a serious lead on the competition, and it worked very well. Today it'll take 5+ years for anyone to catch up if we stopped in our tracks. As we move forward we already have two years of development and engine building into the 9a1 engines and have already found deficiencies and eliminated them.

Its constant evolution and thats what drives Charles and I. I am really bad about only wanting to develop, by the time something is ready to be sold I am so done with it and have moved on, that I don't even care if it sells.

All new cars are built like anything else today... To be "just good enough". This opens doors for innovators like Charles and I. Back when I first started my company all Porsches that had the engines where the belonged didn't have radiators. With those cars it was very difficult, and usually impossible to beat the factory at their own game. With the M96 its been much, much easier since so many compromises existed.

Today the only Porsche engine that impresses me is the Cayenne, other than cylinder issues (stupid damn lokisil in the non TT versions) the Cayenne engine is built like a tank with serious heavy duty parts that do not break. I am currently designing a big bore, 5.3L Cayenne based engine that should hold together with over 1,000HP of output.

I love those old 911s and still have an 80 model, but I wouldn't drive it back and forth to work 70 miles round trip every day, especially in the summer.

I've owned all the modern Porsches that I care about owning. I drive 88 miles a day, by choice. My daily driver is an '88 Carrera with near 300,000 miles on it that has had nothing done to it other than a clutch job a couple of times. I abuse and neglect it, but I drive it every day when I don't have to test a new engine in a modern Porsche before it ships across the country. I drive it in snow, rain, or blazing 100+ degree heat in July, which isn't too uncomfortable with updated A/C. I still believe that Porsches are no about modern amenities or power accessories. I prefer aircooled Porsches and always have; in fact until I bought a test Boxster to apply all of our crazy developments to, a watercooled Porsche had NEVER rolled a tire onto my property.

[Jager]

Jake,
You haven’t given-up on making DVD’s “How to rebuild M96/M97 Motors” have you? I have been patiently waiting.

[Jake Raby]

Originally Posted by Jager

Jake,
You haven’t given-up on making DVD’s “How to rebuild M96/M97 Motors” have you? I have been patiently waiting.

Attend my class on the M96 engine assembly. Its 4 days of priceless info where its all hands on.

The issue with a DVD is keeping it up to date. I have no plans for a DVD now and scrapped most all the footage I already had. Updating my book yearly as we learn more is easy, not so much with a video series.

The classes have taken over; I travel the USA and Canada for the Worldpac training Institute and have a class somewhere every 4-5 weeks. We offer our engine rebuild school here at Flat 6 once per year for 4 days, but it disrupts our R&D and production so much that I may have to move that class elsewhere because time is the commodity that we do not have an excess supply of.

The WTI class is a "complete M96 mechanical class" where we cover IMSR, and etc as an entire two day overview thats not hands on. My engine rebuild school is 4 days in my world and is all hands on.

[thom4782]

Putting things in perspective...at least a I see it.

The IMSB issue gets a lot of air play because the consequences of it falling are catastrophic - $10K to $20K to replace the engine. That said, all mechanical systems can fail - Porsche's original design as well as all aftermarket replacements. So the real question is: how do I manage my risks. For me it comes down to a trade-off of cost of replacement versus probability of failure.

Anecdotally, I've heard that the original Porsche IMSB's failed at about a 5% rate. The Pelican option is an incremental improvement over the Porsche design. Most likely, it fails at a lower rate although I haven't found an estimate published anywhere. About a half dozen single row LN bearings have failed out of perhaps thousands of installations. I get the sense that the LN IMS Retrofit bearings are at least 10 times more reliable than the original Porsche designs. It must be noted, however, that the IMS Retrofit bearings developers recommend their bearings be inspected with every clutch replacement or at 60K miles of use. The forthcoming IMS Solution claims to have a near zero, if not zero, probably of failure and requires no post installation inspections for the life of the engine.

The costs of replacement from $0 (doing nothing) to about $3K to 4K at the top end depending on replacement bearing chosen and what shop does the work. I've weighed my options and tolerance for risk and I know what I plan to do. Because the risk-cost trade-off is so personal, I'll leave to others to decide what they want to do.

[Jake Raby]

The IMS Solution removes 13 wear components from a single row IMSB equipped engine. These are replaced with a bearing flange/ support and a bushing. Clean, pressurized oil becomes the new "support surface".

This is not new to the M96 engine; in fact the other end (oil pump end) of the IMS is supported with this EXACT same technology with pressurized oil from the oil pump directly feeding it. This pressure and volume is exacting what we deliver to the IMS Solution through the spin on oil filter adaptor.

The "other end" of the IMS never wears in these engines, not even if the engine suffers from oil starvation on the track.

As always Less = More.

[rp17]

The real difference here as I see it is that Porsche refused to do anything about it but do an engine swap, and refused to provide any internal engine parts, tools, or even rudimentary failure rate data. Porsches' actions and non actions resulted in depreciation that has made the cost of entry into the used Porsche market to be possible to anyone. [/QUOTE]


I hear many say that our car problems is the reason why they have depreciated so much. Some of that is obviously true but have you priced ANY german car that is 6-10 years old? Take a look at the M3 from around 2003. There is one near me selling for 15K and that wasn't the cheapest one. 04 MB SL 500s are going for 20K. I like my car but I don't think they depreciated enough to reflect this problem if its really that bad.

I appreciate the solutions from the aftermarkets. Hats off to you guys.

[smshirk]

Originally Posted by Jake Raby

I've owned all the modern Porsches that I care about owning. I drive 88 miles a day, by choice. My daily driver is an '88 Carrera with near 300,000 miles on it that has had nothing done to it other than a clutch job a couple of times. I abuse and neglect it, but I drive it every day when I don't have to test a new engine in a modern Porsche before it ships across the country. I drive it in snow, rain, or blazing 100+ degree heat in July, which isn't too uncomfortable with updated A/C. I still believe that Porsches are no about modern amenities or power accessories. I prefer aircooled Porsches and always have; in fact until I bought a test Boxster to apply all of our crazy developments to, a watercooled Porsche had NEVER rolled a tire onto my property.

If I had your commute I wouldn't mind driving my SC, but stop and go into midtown Atlanta is a whole 'nother ball of wax, especially after driving it for the better part of 25 years. I've been thinking about updating the AC to Griffith's or Rennaire, but right now I don't have any AC at all in my Weissach. I still have a much needed paint job to do before any upgrades. I drive it from here only to the NORTH, when I drive it. In fact I found a better way to get to your shop driving around up there a couple of Sundays ago.

[Perfectlap]

^ I lived just outside of Atlanta briefly in the late 90's. Absolutely the worst traffic I have ever experienced in any major city. It wasn't so much that the traffic tied you up for so long but that it was virtually guaranteed every day with no apparent remedy.
Folks were getting up at 4am to get to work at 8am. They don't even do that in NYC on a bad day.

[smshirk]

I totaled my 2003 M3 a few months ago. Granted it had only 43k miles but my insurance co gave me 23900 for it. That was NAdA retail + 4500 for the low mileage. I couldn't replace it for that though not one with that mileage and pristine condition. The closest I came was a 2002 with 18 k miles. I was about to buy it at 27 and the guy backed out. He was one of mu vendors and toldd he felt pressured to sell it to me so I just walked away

[thstone]

Originally Posted by rp17

I hear many say that our car problems is the reason why they have depreciated so much. Some of that is obviously true but have you priced ANY german car that is 6-10 years old? Take a look at the M3 from around 2003. There is one near me selling for 15K and that wasn't the cheapest one. 04 MB SL 500s are going for 20K. I like my car but I don't think they depreciated enough to reflect this problem if its really that bad.

+1 Agree. IMS has only a minor effect on re-sale value of the Boxster. My 2002 BMW X5 went from $58K new to $11,500 when I sold it in 2010. Just about the same depreciation as a Boxster and other similar luxury cars.

The difference is that most Porshe (i.e, early 911) owners are used to their cars holding significant value and not dropping like the rest of the used car market. The reality is that Boxsters and other water cooled Porsche's are now just like any other car (from a re-sale point of view).

[Jake Raby]

The reality is that Boxsters and other water cooled Porsche's are now just like any other car (from a re-sale point of view).

Because the things that made them Porsches and gave them their distinctive character are gone. I just traded a 996 for a 964 C4 and that car is worth more everyday; the car I traded for it is worth less everyday.

That said, for a daily driven car with modern amenities you cannot beat the Boxster/997/997 Cayman all around. To me a Porsche isn't supposed to have good heat, good A/C or amenities, I like the raw feel of an early Porsche and drive that everyday.

Love this car... I just have to finish my 356 before spring so I can fall in love all over again :-)

[Perfectlap]

Originally Posted by thstone

My 2002 BMW X5 went from $58K new to $11,500 when I sold it in 2010.

How much work ($) was outstanding when you sold the X5?

p.s.
I don't think a comparably priced Boxster was down to $11K after only eight years.
Well, not if year eight came before the stock market crash/credit crisis of 2009.
I was checking prices pretty regularly back in 2007-2008 as I was about to add a red/tan 996 C4S and just park the Boxster during winter.
Glad I backed off. 996 prices took a severe beating begining in 2009. Some dropped $30+K in a single year. I knew of one guy
who picked up a 996 Turbo for less than $30K cash. And if we ever fall into a similar credit crunch (feasible) I'd hate to see what would happen to those lofty 991 prices.

[thstone]

Originally Posted by Perfectlap

How much work ($) was outstanding when you sold the X5?

p.s.
I don't think a comparably priced Boxster was down to $11K after only eight years.
Well, not if year eight came before the stock market crash/credit crisis of 2009.
I was checking prices pretty regularly back in 2007-2008 as I was about to add a red/tan 996 C4S and just park the Boxster during winter.
Glad I backed off. 996 prices took a severe beating begining in 2009. Some dropped $30+K in a single year. I knew of one guy
who picked up a 996 Turbo for less than $30K cash. And if we ever fall into a similar credit crunch (feasible) I'd hate to see what would happen to those lofty 991 prices.

I had complete maintanence history and all work was done by the dealer. The X5 was in perfect shape but had a lot of miles (115K). With 75K miles I am guessing that it would have been pretty close to a used 2002 Boxster price. Of course, comparing an SUV and a sports car isn't exactly apples to apples but close enough for government work.

[And416]

Hi Jake,

When would you estimate the availability of the IMSS service/replacement by shops outside of your own would be ? Specifically in the Toronto area.