Death of an IMS caught on video

[patssle]

If you turned the engine off the split second you heard that - would the engine still be toast? Or is it basically fk-ed no matter how fast you react?

[seningen]

Originally Posted by patssle

If you turned the engine off the split second you heard that - would the engine still be toast? Or is it basically fk-ed no matter how fast you react?

Well in theory if you could hear the IMS going (which would be hard over the noise of the engine itself)

if you haven't lost time, there's a chance you could save it.

unfortunately the nature of the failure is such that you are grinding the ball bearings
into metal dust and the particles 1) must travel through out the engine before
making it to the filter, 2) most will be too small to be captured.

I'm not sure how much leeway there is before you are basically out of timing.
Unfortunately the load on the IMS tube is such that will pull towards
the crank and then will likely be pulled towards the one camshaft as
both chains are under tension.

I don't know how much timing there is before you suffer valve/piston interference.

Remember to some extent the vario-cam alters timing simply by physically manipulating the timing chains to alter the relative chain TDCs if you will
across camshafts and crankshaft.

Mike