IMS issue - What Years? - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

schnellman · 05-15-2011, 04:38 PM

I've seen references on this forum to problems starting with the 1997 model. Has Porsche A.G. ever changed the bearing? In other words, is there a point where you could buy a Boxster and never think about IMS failure?

blue2000s · 05-15-2011, 04:46 PM

In 2009 the intermediate shaft was designed out. Any model before that has the potential for a failed bearing. Oooo, scary.

Steve Tinker · 05-15-2011, 08:08 PM

As blue 2000s says above, but as a sweetener - there is the advantage that pre 2005 models can have the IMS bearing assembly replaced with the LN / Flat6 ceramic bearing kit reasonably easily. After 2006 models, the crankcases will have to be split to remove the bearing - a far more daunting (and expensive) proposition.....

Jake Raby · 05-16-2011, 04:47 AM

All years and models are impacted by the IMS bearing issues. No particular year is better or worse based on the data I have collected when dealing with failure calls.

thstone · 05-16-2011, 10:32 AM

Yes, today is a perfectly good day to buy a Boxster and not worry about an IMS issue. Tomorrow is just as good. And the day after that.

IMS failures do occur but the percentage is low and the issue is, IMHO, blown out of proportion to the actual probability of having a failure.

Change your oil frequently, drive your car like it was meant to driven, and sleep easy.

DEye · 05-16-2011, 10:22 PM

Your little Pep talk did a little to chase away those Dark and Scary IMS Clouds and I may sleep better tonight - but that littlle Devil :dance: will still be there in the back of my mind...

Dave S. · 05-17-2011, 07:53 AM

Changing your oil frequently is always a good idea, but I'm always surprised when people say that in regards to the IMS bearing since it is a sealed bearing.

harryrcb · 05-18-2011, 04:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dave S.

Changing your oil frequently is always a good idea, but I'm always surprised when people say that in regards to the IMS bearing since it is a sealed bearing.

Dave, that's because oil still finds it's way into the intermediate shaft and to the bearing which then washes the grease out of the "sealed" bearing most likely due to heat expansion. Unfortunately the oil does not get replaced in that tube too often unless perhaps you drive the car like you stole it, then newer oil gets to it eventually. I have replace several bearings that have been tracked regularly (almost monthly) and driven hard even on the street with 3-5k oil changes and in one case the bearing had 98k with the bearings in perfect condition however none of them had grease in them. On the other hand I just replaced one where the car was babied and the oil changed only around 10k , the bearing failed at 33k. my opinion is that because the oil was not changed often and the car not driven hard at all the newer oil did not get a chance to "splash" up into the bearing shaft and oil broke down along with the bearing.

Jake Raby · 05-18-2011, 06:15 AM

A tremendous amount of the IMS failure is dependent upon luck..

The key is failure prevention. I have devised a method that will make failure prevention much easier in the future. It will sell for 1/10 the cost of an IMS retrofit procedure.

jaykay · 05-18-2011, 07:12 AM

With the retro fit in place, are we able to ease up on the loud pedal to save wear on other parts or are there other sensitive components?

harryrcb · 05-18-2011, 10:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jake Raby

A tremendous amount of the IMS failure is dependent upon luck..

The key is failure prevention. I have devised a method that will make failure prevention much easier in the future. It will sell for 1/10 the cost of an IMS retrofit procedure.

What device Jake? Is it on your web site? If it works the price (1/10th of retrofit) would certainly be enought insentive for everyone to jump on it.

Jake Raby · 05-18-2011, 06:18 PM

The technology is not released yet. We are in the stages of protecting the development from falling into the hands of those copycats that are always nipping at our heels.
We expect this to hit the market in August and trust me, you'll be hearing all about it.

Jaxonalden · 05-18-2011, 09:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by harryrcb

What device Jake? Is it on your web site? If it works the price (1/10th of retrofit) would certainly be enought insentive for everyone to jump on it.

Harry,

My guess is that Jake is patenting some kind of vibration indicating system. On some aircraft engines they have an EVI (engine vibration indicator) gauge that reads in mils. I did some research, the following text is extracted from Boeing Airliner magazine, OCT-DEC 1987 issue;

Two types of vibration pickups have been used on Boeing airplanes, the electromechanical velocity pickup and the piezoelectric accelerometer. Signals from velocity pickups are converted into vibration displacement, measured in 1/1000 of an inch, peak to peak (mils double amplitude). These units represent the physical displacement of the vibration sensor. Signals from accelerometers are converted into velocity, measured in inches per second (ips). These units represent the peak amplitude of the velocity of the vibration sensor.. . Boeing airplanes typically use a 0-5 scale for cockpit display of vibration. On earlier applications, the scale provides an indication of absolute vibration units(ips or mils da).

It'll be interesting to see what disclaimer Jake comes with it. I can't see if someone buys one, installs it and their engine hand grenades that Jake will be responsible if the EVI doesn't detect the IMS going south in time to save the engine. Unless, it's hooked into the ignition system and it shuts down the engine at a predetermined vibration reading, before catastrophic failure? Could be interesting.

harryrcb · 05-19-2011, 04:23 AM

I think there was some mention of that some time ago. just forgot about it. Jake hurry up and let everyone know, these motors (I think) seem to be increasing in their failure rate. I'm comming across people with blown motors almost weekly that have not announced it to anyone and end up selling their cars to racers.

Jake Raby · 05-19-2011, 09:30 AM

As I have done on Rennlist, where this has been a hot topic, I ask that no one guess in public as to what this might be or how it works. At the present time FOUR people know what I have done and all of them are under this roof.

Feel free to PM me a guess, and if you get it right and do not mention it in public I will give up to 10 people a free unit of the technology (first come first served) when the units are released in late July..

I have not and will not reply to anyone with a specific answer as to whether they were right, wrong or close, all the guesses get the same response.

Please respect what we have put into this and the fact that we must protect this technology at all costs, because no one else knows as much about these failures as we do and that sheer experience is what has led to this development.

As far as disclaimers go, don't be surprised if the units that come from us have a 200% money back guarantee that could be applied toward an IMS retrofit procedure or turnkey FSI engine. Nothing is in stone yet, but this development IS this good. We already know that it works. I will be forcing an engine to fail very soon to prove it on video. Thats a perfectly good engine in my own car.

thstone · 05-19-2011, 10:02 AM

As requested, sent you a PM with my guess.

jaykay · 05-19-2011, 10:22 AM

PM sent with guess from a few weeks ago and a new system!

Bobiam · 05-21-2011, 07:14 AM

Jake could have said "I can tell ya, but then I'll have to kill ya"!!!!

Lookin' forward to the July-august release of the product and theory. My after-market warranty will be expiring soon after that and I want to be able to sleep at night, so Jake's product should be just in time......... (Thanks Jake)

Idaho Red Rocket 3 · 05-22-2011, 07:18 PM

Jake,
Please describe the "procedure" of forcing an engine to fail. I want to be sure I never accidently do it.

Jake Raby · 05-23-2011, 08:59 AM

The procedure for forcing an engine failure is to extract a perfectly good IMSR bearing from an engine and replace it with a bearing that is at stage II failure.. I have several of these that I can choose from that were extracted from engines that we have saved recently.

Then drive the car until the engine breaks... While my technology is employed to forecast the big moment..

I sacrifice good parts all the time and this won't be the first time I have blown up a 6,000+ dollar engine on purpose, for the sake of science and development.