As close as it gets: IMS Save!
 

Here's one I did this week.

The car had a weird rattling noise when I pulled it in the shop.

I've never seen one this far gone that hadn't totally failed:

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1409924931.jpg

This customer trailered his car from about 75 miles away. If he had driven, it would have never made it.

The car has 44k miles.

2000 2.7, twin-row bearing.

Thanks for posting that. Nice to see those get caught before catastrophic failure. Any idea how long it had been since the last oil change and if the owner or shop had been examining the filter? For my $ I can see the bright side of a failure as a chance for an engine upgrade, but I have pretty much decided that I am going to put one of Mr Raby's IMS Guardians in as soon as I get the basic to-do list completed.

All the helicopters I have flown have a 'chip detector' installed for the engine and gearboxes, which is basically the same thing. If the warning light comes on, I don't fly to the next repair shop. I land.

The good news about this one is that it was failing on the IMS side, not the engine side.

All the metal was isolated in the shaft. Although it took a while to clean up, it was contained.

The pan and filter were clean.


I fly turboprops with chip detectors, this would not have set that off. That's the scary part.

What prompted the owner to bring the car into the shop?

He just purchased the car and thought an IMS retrofit was a good idea.

Wow...You should of told him to buy a lottery ticket that same day. Can't imagine getting that lucky twice in a life time. :cheers:

be advised that the Guardian is not designed to tell you that you need to replace the imsb. once the Guardian gives an alarm, the motor has to be rebuilt because all the metal will have gone through the motor. All the guardian does is give Jake Raby a rsady supply of new business for his motor rebhilding bhsiness.

Many people who get the guardian will remove it once it alarms and sell the car to an unsuspecting buyer.

At least it HAD a symptom...the rattling. The metal debris going only into the IMS tube is a scary possibility...but if I heard a weird rattling coming from that area the IMS would be on the table as a list of possible sources

Hmm. Clean to the eye or clean to the tolerance of the bearings? Did you perform an engine oil analysis to see how much additional metal is in the oil?

I'd rebuild the entire engine. Just sayin'.

It happens all the time.. I never dreamed it would happen, but I've busted at least a dozen people red handed that have done this over the last 3 years of the Guardian being on the market.

That said, Series 9... That engine isn't saved yet. In its current state with metal debris suspended that heavily in the oil, the engine isn't qualified for an LN retrofit. You'll have to carry out extensive oil system flushes, employ a spin on filter adaptor (to omit the bypass system that will send unfiltered oil to the rest of the engine) and then fit with a filter mag.

Even with all that done, the chances of the retrofit component being taken out by even the slightest residual amount of this ferromagnetic material is great. Looks like a good place to employ a competitors product, to me.. Please post the results! :-)

That said, this amount of debris would have set an IMS Alert with an IMS Guardian. The engines and IMSBs I killed here on purpose during the development were often times not as great as this one is illustrated.

If this engine was at my facility, it would come all the way apart and be ultrasonically cleaned. Why? Because I want to maintain my record of 414 IMS Retrofits with never having a post- process failure and if a retrofitted bearing that we install fails later, we aren't just another shop that can throw the finger at the retrofit component as being bad. No retrofit component can live through super heat treated ferromagnetic debris being suspended in the oil, and it won't just take out the IMS Bearing, it'll take out the oil pump, main and rod bearings and all the rest of the internally lubricated components...

The smaller and finer the debris is, the easier it suspends in the oil and the further it travels. I'd rather have chunks in the oil as tiny, microscopic particles.

Yes, we've learned from the mistakes of others.

The Code Of Conduct that our IMS Solution Certified Installers must operate under will not allow them to apply a retrofit component to an engine that has seen a failure of this degree thats been pictured here. One of them did this last year and when he returned the old bearing to register it, his Certification was pulled within 2 hours.

Approach with care and warn the owner. Lots of engines that are "saved", shouldn't be. The perfect engine for a retrofit is the one with a "perfect" IMS Bearing at the time of retrofit.

Also, trust that the outer seal fails at the same rate as the inner seal of the IMS Bearing. As the balls and races lose control the wobbling and vibration take the seals out simultaneously. On the outer side of the IMSB high amounts of engine oil are present to wash the metal off the bearing and into the oil system. This is why the outside of the bearing appeared to be clean. It may have been clean, but the debris is just inside every nook and cranny of the engine, now.

On the innermost side, thats pictured and shows all the material, there's no engine oil supply to wash the metal away and elsewhere into the engine. This is why it appears that all the metal was caught in the shaft, but thats not the case. I have done the forensics on these episodes a few dozen times and can state this with a degree of certainty.

None of this is new.. Its not only common sense, its posted and stated many times over, including here:
http://imsretrofit.com/bearing-already-failing/

So the stock filter housing allows an amount of unfiltered oil to circulate always? Or only once the sprung bypass is loaded with a certain amount of oil pressure?

Makes me wonder if that was the case in this particular car. Is there any way for an owner/buyer to tell if a car has had a Guardian installed then removed?

Probably not any legal recourse for an as-is type of sale, but there are ways of making a dishonest seller regretful....

I believe the stock housing allows bypassed oil on start up. For that reason I just went to the LN Spin on adapter.

^^ +1 :cheers:

Regardless of morals I don't see how any of these sellers have the guts to sell a car with a dosing ims knowing it is likely to go out on a test drive. It is a very immediate issue as we all know. failure appears to happen within the first week or so of ownership on these guardian cars. How pins and needles it must be for the seller on the test drives is unimaginable.

Thank God that I replaced mine. It was in perfect looking condition and the seals were in good shape. I am sleeping very peacefully now. Especially since the RMS was replaced, along with the water pump, clutch, and the air oil separator at the same time. yes the total cost was $3k for all of that, but it was totally worth it. ;)

If the engine every does give out, I am going to ship the car straight to Arizona and have the V-8 conversion completed on it for $7k :dance:

When I looked into this $7k only covered the conversion kit and not the donor engine.
To get GT3 type power from the V8 you're probably in the $20k region and that's before you tweak the suspension.

And after the relief spring sees thousands of thermal cycles and becomes weak.. Or after its a decade old.

The filter thats used and how clean that filter is also increases the loads that the bypass sees.. Thats why long service intervals that are recommended by the factory suck so bad, the dirtier the filter, the more oil is bypassed. Some cars will see some bypass oil at all times because of variables like these.

When a failure occurs the filter does it's job well, until the pressure within the filter housing is elevated due to a partially blocked filter, and the bypass opens. Its at that moment when the main and rod bearings see collateral damage from debris suspended in the oil. Its pressure fed death.

In an ideal world, perhaps. Not everyone is able or willing to spend $20k on a car that's worth $9k.

He'll be doing oil/filter changes at 500 mile intervals for a couple thousand miles.

It's the customer's car and the customer's decision. I think this one has a very good chance of pulling through.

Actually, it is.

See here from the LN website:

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01/ims1410018873.jpg

Yes, thats a Preferred Installer, not a Certified Installer. Huge difference between the two. Also, that statement also means that its not fully qualified, because it doesn't qualify for a warranty.

From this side of the fence the primary concern is the effectiveness and long term service of the retrofitted bearing. Constantly these bearings are being swapped from engines that were found to be previously failing. Shops are not carrying out pre- inspections before retrofits are done. I find issues with engines and DQ those engines routinely, these things can be anything from a sump full of IMS failure debris, to a chunk of a timing chain roller, of a handful of timing chain wear rail material. At that point, we stop and go into a reactive mode. Thats the other part of the procedure I developed, and every engine is presumed guilty until proven innocent. When I instruct classes all across N. America I ask on the beginning of day #2, who carries out a pre- qualification before carrying out an IMS Retrofit. All year long, I have had TWO people out of about 400 raise their hands. Put clearly- an IMS Procedure isn't completed, as directed, without the engine being pre- qualified first.

Yes, it may be the customer's decision, because it's his car. You can trust that even if that customer makes the decision to take the risk, and the engine experiences a failure that he still won't be happy. What is "ok" today and seemingly going to save him money, is not going to be okay if things don't work out.

As long as he doesn't make phone calls this way, and he is responsible for his own decisions and risks, all is well for everyone except for him.

When I act as the customer's advisor I treat the car like it was my own. That means that at times I have disassembled a complete engine just to clean debris from it when carrying out a retrofit and caught one at mid failure, like this one. It didn't cost him anything, because I knew it would cost me everything if it failed. All he did was sign on the dotted line saying he had ben informed and that he granted us permission to strip the whole thing. Did I make any money? No. Did I lose any money? Yes. Did I retain a reputation and keep my character? Yes. Thats all that matters here.

If the proper steps are carried out after a failure of this level, the engine at least stands
a chance to survive. These steps are extensive and time consuming. If those things are not done, it doesn't stand a chance at living a full life.

The fine line between being a "Hero" or a "Zero" is so faint that its invisible. One second is all that separates the two.

We are all only as good as the outcome of our next job. Some of us care more about that than others, and some of us have had IMS Retrofit bearings fail, and others haven't. IMSR #415 was finished here yesterday, and I post inspect it on Monday, just like I pre- inspected it last Monday.

So very true:cheers:

I hear you brother! I am the guy who has always said that swapping in a replacement or eBay engine is by far the most cost effective solution - these cars are simply not worth the rebuild in most cases.

But thinking that this engine can simply and cheaply be repaired is a recipe for failure. The damage has already done to all of the friction surfaces and 500 mile oil change intervals after the fact won't fix it.

The engine can certainly "pull through" and run for awhile longer if that is all the owner is looking for, but eventually it will likely suffer a major failure due to the damage that wasn't repaired. Or worse, the "just-get-it-running-again" car gets sold and the next owner is stuck with an engine that is living on borrowed time.

The customer has a receipt for the work that says "NO WARRANTY DUE TO DEBRIS FOUND FROM A FAILING BEARING".

This is a case of doing the best we could given the customer's financial parameters. It was either try to save it or part out the car. The customer was fully informed when he made the decision to proceed.

I feel good about the work we did and I stand by our decisions. I run an honest shop that respects my customers.

If he sells the car and presents the paperwork for the bearing to a prospective buyer, the buyer will see documentation of what happened.




AND, I've been pre qualifying cars since before the LN "code of conduct" even existed. This car passed visual inspection of the pan and filter, and passed the cam timing check with the laptop before I started work.




I'm thinking I remember now why I don't post here very much......

Maybe all of that is good enough, and maybe there will be a positive outcome.

To clarify, Series9 is neither a Preferred Installer of IMS Retrofit components, or a Certified Installer of the IMS Solution.

Thinking that's a very fair way to do it as some clients don't have the financial resources to do it up 'the official way'. My concern - would it not also make sense to stamp it right on the car somehow? Someone could get this done and then quickly flip the car. If they don't present the paperwork, how would the new buyer know? Or am I missing something?

There ought to be a watch list of cars that had the IMS swap after failure had begun without a full tear down. I'm guessing if the pan is cleaned, and oil changed before a PPI, the prospective buyer will have no idea that the engine has little radioactive bits deep inside. Nor would the seller disclose this as it would require a steep reduction in the ask. So for the lurkers, be very wary of a car with a recent IMS swap or one with little mileage since the swap. Maybe owners should ask for photos of the bearing from their mechanic at the moment of initial extraction. This can be put in the service records come time to sell the car. Sure this photo evidence can be staged but thats pretty shady stuff that I doubt a shop with a long and well known history would risk for no real profit. On second thought maybe a short video burned to DVD would be better. After all this a $10k plus concern that could give a potential buyer some peace of mind. The shop could charge accordingly.

The proper method of registering an IMS Bearing Retrofit requires the old bearing to be sent back to LN, where it becomes part of a data base.

At the end of the day, from the developer's stand point, any engine that has a bearing failing shouldn't be retrofitted.

If any retrofit bearing fails, no matter if the customer was told or not, it still tarnishes the retrofit reputation. It also has a lot to do with the way the customer is "told" about what **may** happen in the future. If I explain these things to someone, they certainly won't move forward. No unicorns or rainbows here.

If they can't afford to fix it the right way today, before it fails, they damn sure won't be able to afford to repair it after it fails. Then they'll want someone else higher up in the food chain to "stand behind their product". That may be the shop that installed the retrofit bearing, or it may be the retrofit component manufacturer.

Then, they'll be told "NO" and they'll get pissy, then they'll decide to scream about it on a forum... Meanwhile, no one knows the whole backstory.

In my professional classes, I added two hours of info specifically on the topic of pre- qualification prior to an IMSR.


Fair to who? Its not fair to the technology or the developers to put these components in harm's way. The people that lack the "financial resources" are the ones who will expect someone else to pay the bill for them. They scream the loudest and whine hardest.

Jake - my car has a retrofit from the previous owner. Can I contact you with my VIN to see if it was registered?

The LN website also goes as far as to state:

3. If the original bearing has failed, a Preferred Installer will NEVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES perform any IMS procedure.

The problem herein lies that we do not have a clear definition of what is a failed bearing. From the picture that was posted, I would consider that bearing failed, but again, that's my opinion and you know what they say, opinions are like ass*****, everyone has one.

If a procedure that is carried out in less than optimal conditions, yes, there is no warranty, but a spin on oil filter must be employed in addition to more frequent oil changes and dropping of the oil pan at every change.

Someone posting that they have saved a motor with a retrofit procedure without clearly stating the extra lengths required and also clarifying that it is a good chance the engine will still blow up gives people the wrong idea. Most failures of our IMS Retrofit bearings can be tracked back to the original bearing having failed or even having started to fail. Any debris = a good chance the engine will blow up.

One of our competitors throws us under the bus with a video of a failed LN bearing but neglects to point out that the original bearing was cut out of the ims and the engine had already been compromised and that same bearing was removed then reinstalled in another engine before supposedly having failed.

Similarities between these two cases are that posts are made and without all the details, people can take away whatever they want, whether correct or incorrect, as the information shared can and will be taken out of context.

I personally would only do retrofit procedures on healthy engines, that's just me, but I'll be honest that I know that tens of installations are done weekly that, if I were consulted, I would recommend against carrying out.

Only a small percentage of bearings are registered and only one or two were sent in that were failed bearings where the shop still carried out the procedure. I can tell you in every case that the original bearing was failed that I know of, the new bearing failed too.

ONLY if it has a serialized Flat 6 Innovations decal in the door jamb, as installed here at our facility during the installation.

If the developers are going to sell their product on the open market to whomever, then they give away any rights to it and people are free to do what they wish. Maybe the developers should only provide their product to licensed shops if this is a concern?

Which is fine, as long as those individuals assume full responsibility for their judgment calls. Some do. Some don't, and some have been caught in the act.

Which is similar to what the IMS Solution Certified Installer program is based around.

Its tough to moderate these things and if we didn't care, we'd want everyone to install every retrofit possible, engine failing, or not. Thats not the case.

Its pretty clear now he won't be enjoying this Boxster for a long time. Sounds like the owner of the car should try to get his money back. I would call Joe Pesci on this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZzAS53gcDg

Great movie! I do not see any reason why the owner won't be enjoying his car. Everyone here is always so worried about one thing or another. It isn't worth all the gray hairs.

Jake: This doesn't make sense. The only time you have the vin in a database is if you install the bearing and you send it back to yourself? Did I read these posts correctly?

No, you are a bit confused. While I am the developer of the process and have done all the test work for the products, we do not manufacture them- thats LN Engineering.

Nothing thats purchased for an IMSR is bought from my company. We do offer IMSR services, and in those cases we do carry the work out here and have our own data base.

My IMSR development work was done for LN Engineering. Thats what my role has been since day #1.

OK, that is where I was confused. Perhaps LNE has info on my car as it was not installed by Jake.

Chuck - would I be able to check with you to see if the installer from the PO (Import Performance in Wilmington, NC) ever registered with you?

These are the last comments I will make on this:


My primary reason for starting this thread was to try to keep the IMS failure issue front and center. I've seen quite a few scrapped engines over these failures and want to encourage everyone to address their cars while they have a good bearing, and not a bearing in the condition I found this one.



Saying that the owners of these cars should not have a choice about the repairs because they might try to sell them later without disclosing what was done, is the same as saying that body shops should not be allowed to fix cars after an accident because the owner might not disclose in the future.

The serial number of the bearing and the VIN of the car have been registered with LN. If the engine fails, well, we will have done our best to try to save it. Again, that's the best we could do on this one. Try to remember, this is America. You know, personal freedom and all that jazz.

Jake's statement that I am neither a "Preferred Installer" nor certified in the IMS Solution is correct, but I feel that he put it up to imply that I am somehow unqualified to do either. I was a preferred installer for four years, and decided a few months ago to let my subscription expire because I felt that my advertising dollars would be spent more efficiently locally. I removed myself from the list, not the other way around. As to whether I become an installer of the IMS Solution, I don't know what the future holds, but I'm not ruling it out.

I am, and will continue to be a huge supporter of LN Engineering and their products. I am a dealer for their products and plan to continue in that role.

I apologize for creating an unnecessary ******************** storm here. Running a car shop presents many and varied ethical gray areas. I work hard to stay on the correct side of the fence and will continue to do so.

If you haven't addressed your factory bearing, please do.