New-to-me 2004S in Atlanta
 

I am another guy that have had several Miata's over the last 15 years, used for both dd and tracking, that decided to make the move to Porsche. After talking to current and previous owners on my local Miata site, and tons of research on this forum, Pelican Parts, and other web based sites, I decided on a 2004S. I found the one I wanted in the PCA classifieds. A 2004S garage queen, 27K miles, all service records including documentation of the RM and LN IMS install at 18K as preventative maintenance.
I flew to PA and drove the car back to Atlanta and could not have been happier. I drove the car for one week and 1200 miles when it happen to stall at a red light. Upon trying to restart the car it sounded like belts and big metal parts had been thrown in a dryer and someone hit the start button. After 3 tows, one being to the local Porsche place (idiots), it is now resting at Jake Raby's shop in Cleveland, GA. Had I of found his website in my initial research, Home I probably would have never taken the Boxster yellow brick road. Jake sent me a video of what they discovered when they removed the oil filter canister and it made me sick to my stomach. The canister and filter were totally contaminated with main and rod bearing particles. Engine is shot! Now the cost to install a built Raby engine with all of the upgrades to correct the known weak spots in the 986-24 Porsche engine is the same price I paid for the car. I can't say enough about Flat 6 Innovations, their expertise, and their customer service. What I can say is buying a car with this engine in it is a total crap shoot. Buyer beware. I had a great 1200 miles and 7 days in this car but it costs me about $16K.http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1443603884.jpg
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Holy Crap!
 

That sucks and is very scary to me.

I just bought my 2004 Boxster S after owning a Miata for 22 years and the Miata was a fantastic road trip car and DE machine.

I found a garage queen with 25,000 miles on her in Chattanooga at a dealer that was a trade in from a woman in Denver.

I drove her home to Louisiana and then shipped her to Jake Raby at Flat 6 Innovations for their IMS #3 package and agree that he provided the best service I have ever experienced.

He installed his plain bearing "IMS Solution" in mine.

The fact that you did everything "right" in picking your car is very, very, VERY scary.

Good luck.

We are all in this together.

Your story is what the rest of us lose sleep over
Yours cars driving history is also the thought that garage queens (27k miles in 10-11 years) may be more susceptible to engine failures

You have a major decision to make that we all fear having to make
At least you are in some very capable hands, expensive but certainly where I would want to go if I wanted a new motor

Good luck and keep us informed

That really sucks.

BTW, there are alternatives to a Raby engine at much lower costs
Does Raby build a great engine, YES.
Are other alternatives viable, YES

Here is a guy in the Chicago area that just moved to Florida that sells engines and charges IIRC $1000 for removal and install
************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************ ************MB MOTORSPORTS - Porsche engine repair and maintenance service

Isn't there a long wait for a Raby engine?
The Raby engines are highly upgraded and simply great engines. I am not going to get into a discussion of RABY vs others, just that there are alternatives.

YMMV

I think most of us don't actually lose any sleep over these things. It really sucks that this happened to you before you had a chance to truly fall in love with the car. I have 82k on my 02 S. If it hand grenades before 100k, I'll ship it to MB Motorsports in Florida and spend 7-9 grand on a rebuild. After 100, sell the roller and buy another.
There is always risk with used high performance cars. Sorry you got hit so early.

That's not a fun story - but if I do read it right, it does sound like when all is said and done, you will have spent $16,000 on a 2004 "S" with a rebuilt Raby engine?

That's not a horrible ending to this story. A great performance car, in what looks to be great shape - with a reliable and well built engine....

I think he spent $16k on the car and a Raby engine is $15k+

That really sucks, but honestly when people bring me very low mileage cars I tell them to beware. I'd rather buy a 20 year old car with 100K on it rather then a garage queen because things just go bad sitting.

You know you could always put a V8 in it :D

No, spent 21K on the car and from what I can gather it's worth about 5K in it's current state. The difference being 16K. Put one of Jake's motors in and I'll have 41K invested.

Ah, gotcha. That definitely is super-crappy. Sorry to hear buddy. Any kind of lemon laws regarding this? You only had her a week.

There are alternatives, but most are just as risky as buying a used engine. In some cases the used engine is better than the "rebuild" that someone is doing that doesn't understand these engines intimately.

Today what we see has changed from a few years ago. Back then, there were no alternatives, you either bought a new engine from Porsche, or you bought my engine, because no one else was even attempting to do internal work with these engines. Today what we see are not failures like Hammerhead2501's, we are seeing the shoddily rebuilt engines failing, and people come to us because the "alternative" failed. They always say "I should have just brought it here in the first place". They should have, because, in lots of those cases I won't even attempt to work with the engine that the last guy molested, and we have to start from scratch. I am to the point now, where we are not accepting jobs that have these engines installed, since they are such a pain to deal with.

What has happened to this engine is a bit outside the norm. It's failure may end up shedding light on mode of failure 29, as the symptoms were odd, and the failure dynamics are not what I have seen before all wrapped into one failure.

We will know in a couple of weeks. Hammerhead2501 faces a big decision, and its a shame that he owned the car for such a short period. Lucky for him, he's less than 80 miles from where all the magic happens, and where the first M96 engine program was started. I hope to resurrect this one.

Actually, we have several great, affordable options and many European shops have been rebuilding these engines longer than anyone. Quite successfully too. Lucky for us, we have some of these guys here to choose from now. If you enjoy paying a ludicrous amount of money to a scare tactic shop, have at it but there are several viable alternatives out there.

To date I have had almost 2800 technicians attend my engine rebuild classes, and hands on schools. That includes most of those who have gone on to try to be our competitors in this market. I was the one that started these classes, and pushed others to learn about the engines, and I started that way before most people even cared about them. We do the same thing today with the 9a1 engine, where we can hardly fill classes, since shops don't think they need to learn about the newest cars (yet). We've been building the 9a1 since 2010.

A cheap rebuild is the most expensive M96 that can be bought. You'll have to learn that the hard way, though. If the car is well- loved, there is only one option, and its the one thats been around the longest, is the most proven and has a set of components that can't be purchased anywhere else.

Sharp looking car - congrats but sorry to hear about your troubles.

Guess the preventative IMS fix aka "save" was ummm no fix or save...

Best of luck :)

The engine was not pre- qualified for the IMSR process. I personally documented this during my diagnosis. The IMS bearing hasn't failed, this engine has main and rod bearing failure symptoms.

Had the preventative procedure included a pre- qualification like it should have, there's a good chance this failure would have been caught in process.

The sump had never been removed, the bearing was slammed in and the process was treated Like a brake job...

Proof of life...
 

...Here's what the good folks at Flat 6 Innovations provided to me after they performed the preventative maintenance on my Boxster.

Jake and his techs R&R'd my clutch, flywheel, plugs, A/O separator, low temp thermostat, Water Pump, RMS, serpentine belt and pulleys, cam chain tensioners, and IMS bearing--ALL AT MY REQUEST.

I was not taking chances. I bought my dream car and I want to keep her forever.

When the car came back on the flat bed after shipping her home to me in Louisiana from their Georgia shop, not only did they provide all of the parts that they removed, but they also included an oil sample and super high resolution photographs of the oil filter cut open and the sump that proves my car passed the "Pre-IMS install inspection" and that all was good inside the engine.

Pics:

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1443744291.jpg
http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1443744310.jpg

Oh, and for CHRISP357:
 

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1443744494.jpg


I have no skin in the game, just a very happy customer of Jake Raby and Flat 6 Innovations.

Best service I have ever experienced.

I work in the car business for a major manufacturer, and I know how vehicles work, and their service was extraordinary.

Cheers!

:cheers:

Hammerhead I'm sorry to hear of your problems but if you decide to move forward with Jake you won't regret the results except the hit to your wallet. His facility does top notch work I would dare say the best in the business. But I am biased as I have done several transactions with Jake. If you sell the car in it's current condition you will lose money. If you move forward with the repair you will lose money, however the reward of a great running engine is priceless IF you truly love the car. As Porsche enthusiests we spend stupid amounts of money on our cars that's just the way it is. Many have no problem spending 2k on an exhaust that nets 5 hp or 4k on wheels that just look nice. Good luck with whatever decision you make. :cheers:

Boxster on the mend
 

UPDATE; Made the trek up to Cleveland last Monday to meet with Jake. He had my motor out of the car and laid out like a frog on display in biology class. Seems the filter actually did it's job in this case and saved the motor from extensive collateral damage. Diagnosis was a failed IMS bearing. In Jakes words " It appears that the IMS chain had worn to the point that gave it "stretch". This made the chain operate with a flutter that transmitted into the tensioner paddle, and the bearing was tasked to control this. This is not conclusive, but more than likely its the case. I first saw this in 2007, and I think this leads to lots of bearing failures. I have not found any other deficiencies, or issues within the engine. As the chain was fluttering, it was creating fine weardebris that was induced by the bearing, since it was adjacent to the drive chain. This debris probably induced the failure."

Since the oil fliter happened to operate as it should my rebuild or reconstruct has turned into a repair which is saving me a LOT of money. They are putting this motor back together with updated parts and employing the "IMS Solution" as described on their website, Flat6Innovations.com.

Even though this has been a painful experience I am extremely happy to have found Jake Raby and Flat 6!! I feel confident that when they are through with this Boxster it will give me the years of enjoyment I was looking for originally.

More to come...

Hoping someone can answer this question: Just purchased a 2004 Boxster S Anniversary Edition that had a catastrophic IMS engine failure in 2009. Porsche good willed a new engine on 4/2009. New engine only has 26k on it. Is this new engine suspect for an IMS failure? Or would that have been corrected with engine. Thanks.