about ready to start the IMS project

[amagalla]

A bit of an update. I just finished changing my IMS over the weekend. My 03 S had 55300 miles on it. I ran into a couple of glitches, but for the most part, it went well. The old bearing was in good shape, but I'm not sure it was original (is there a way to tell?). In any event, there were a few things that needed to be done on it anyways. There was an oil leak. I thought it was the RMS, but in the end, it looked like more oil was coming out of the IMS flange than the RMS. Since the oil was out of the car, I decided to add the LN oil filter spin on adapter.
It also needed a new clutch. Although the clutch wasn't slipping yet, it was really rather stiff. It was still the original clutch I believe and at almost 60k I figured it was time for a new one. I also installed a new dual mass flywheel. The feel on the new clutch is SOOO much lighter. Compared to the old clutch, it now feels like it's not even connected. While the transmission was out, I decided to change it's oil as well. I decided to go with Royal Purple 75W-90. It feels a little smoother, but that could be the clutch.
Since I had to remove the exhaust to get to everything, I replaced it with a Manzo muffler/TopSpeed test pipe system. All I can say is....WOW. The sound is so fantastic. At 5K RPM, it sounds like a supercar. It's really incredible. There is fiberglass all over the car though. I'll have to hose the car off sometime this week.
I'm so happy to have all of this done. It's like having the car make it though a successful open heart surgery.

The next project will be the brakes and repainting the calipers.

Tony