Poll, Condition of my IMS bearing

[thstone]

My IMSB was in perfect shape after 136,000 miles and 89 track days. Instead, lifter failure was caused the engine to fail. Best of luck but odds are very high that if your bearing had a problem, you'd already know it.

[Perfectlap]

you say the bare minimum of oil changes were done? How many?


Another factor is how often was the car driven. a 12 year old car that saw about 4,500 miles might be good if the mileage came in somewhat frequent and year round trips. Not so great if they came from mostly summer time driving without having the oil changed after the driving season.

Did your PPI include a leak down test? That will tell you more (engine wise) than a visual inspection of just the IMS bearing, which really needs to taken apart to see what's doing (by someone who knows what to look for).

[Pominoz]

Originally Posted by Perfectlap

you say the bare minimum of oil changes were done? How many?


Another factor is how often was the car driven. a 12 year old car that saw about 4,500 miles might be good if the mileage came in somewhat frequent and year round trips. Not so great if they came from mostly summer time driving without having the oil changed after the driving season.

Did your PPI include a leak down test? That will tell you more (engine wise) than a visual inspection of just the IMS bearing, which really needs to taken apart to see what's doing (by someone who knows what to look for).

Hi, from the service history it looks like the car has only had 4 oil changes in it's life. The previous owner used 20K kilometres as his oil change limit, not the number of years. That's why it was a 4 year gap between the most recent oil changes. If the theories about leaving 'old' oil in the engine are correct then I might be in trouble :-)

On the PPI they did a compression test, not a leak down test as far as I know.
The compression test has 4 cylinders down 4% and 2 cylinders down 6% which isn't too bad I think.

Cheers.

[Perfectlap]

Originally Posted by Pominoz

Hi, from the service history it looks like the car has only had 4 oil changes in it's life. The previous owner used 20K kilometres as his oil change limit, not the number of years. That's why it was a 4 year gap between the most recent oil changes. If the theories about leaving 'old' oil in the engine are correct then I might be in trouble :-)

On the PPI they did a compression test, not a leak down test as far as I know.
The compression test has 4 cylinders down 4% and 2 cylinders down 6% which isn't too bad I think.

Cheers.

4 oil changes in 55k miles? That's well beyond the limit of a mass market oil like Mobil 1. I would get a sample of your oil after 4K miles and send to Blackstone Labs for one of those simple oil analysis. Then move to a more expensive oil like Motul Xcess 8100 or Joe Gibbs DT40 and use a spin on oil filter, which makes sure you're only using filtered oil at all times. Do a second oil analysis after a few oil changes. And make sure you let the egine warm up with a good 20 minutes of driving before you start laying into the higher RPMs. Best to take it easy until you have better sense of the impact of such long stints with old oil.
Or ignore all of the above and roll the dice. It's kind of like investing in stocks, some people sleep fine others check the computer every 5 minutes.

[Pominoz]

Originally Posted by Perfectlap

4 oil changes in 55k miles? That's well beyond the limit of a mass market oil like Mobil 1..

I don't know why the previous owner left it quite so long between oil changes, especially as he's a designer for a car company. I'm going to change the oil between services myself, and generally look after the engine as I intend to keep the car..
Assuming nothing serious is uncovered on Friday then I'll be reasonably confident about the engine going forward.

[pjv]

Who's doing the IMS work on your car Pominoz? I had the IMS Solution installed by Weltmeister Melbourne a year ago (04 986, single row bearing), and am happy that I did it.

[Pominoz]

Originally Posted by pjv

Who's doing the IMS work on your car Pominoz? I had the IMS Solution installed by Weltmeister Melbourne a year ago (04 986, single row bearing), and am happy that I did it.

Hi,

Weltmeister did my PPI actually, but I'm having the IMS retrofit done by Autoart in Preston. I had the major service done there are they seem very good, very friendly and helpful.
They should be using the new IMS pro dual row retrofit for single row bearings on my car, although they think there is a small chance my car may have the older dual row bearing in it. I'm not sure if that's likely given my car is 2002.

What condition was your old bearing in, and how may Kilometres had your car done?

[Pominoz]

So I've just dropped my car off to have the IMSB done. I'll be hearing fairly soon what condition the old IMSB is in, so I'm feeling a tiny bit nervous :-)
I'm getting the old bearing back, so I'll be putting some pictures up of it.
The only other question mark, is what condition my clutch is in. Could be an expensive day....

[Pominoz]

Phew!

The old ISMB was still intact, even has the seals on but it looks like the grease has been washed out. The IMS was full of old oil. The old bearing turns smoothly by hand and there was no nasty stuff in the engine oil although it was a bit dirty even though it had just been changed. I guess the last change has acted as a flushing oil to help get rid of the remains of the 4 year old stuff that was in there before.

The clutch was down to 1mm of lining so that's been changed, and they've done the RMS as well. For anyone who is in Melbourne I can really recommend Autoart in Preston, they've done the whole job quickly and at a great price, so I can still afford some fuel for the car :-)

I guess it's up to you to decide who was most correct on the poll, but I'm very glad the one person who voted for near engine detonation was completely wrong

Finally some pictures of the old IMSB.

Cheers!

[Pominoz]

Originally Posted by thstone

My IMSB was in perfect shape after 136,000 miles and 89 track days. Instead, lifter failure was caused the engine to fail. Best of luck but odds are very high that if your bearing had a problem, you'd already know it.

Thanks for that, I'm keeping everything crossed!

One more factoid I forgot to mention, it's only ever had Mobil1 0w40 oil from new.

I know there are different opinions again on the best engine oil with some people going for higher viscosity. I know nothing about oil, but my hunch is that you'd be better off with lower viscosity in an IMS bearing with the grease washed out, assuming that the worst wear is happening on engine start up. Having said that, I don't think the longevity of the bearing is likely to be down to one thing. We'll probably never know.

Cheers!