Pedros Techno DOF IMS fix?

[Daniel R]

There are people on this forum who are far more mechanically-minded than myself, so I shall reserve all comments on the technical aspect of this dilemma.

I do have considerable experience in assessing risk and reward however. When it comes to insuring an event where the risk is unknown (ie. limited or inaccurate data of failure rates in this case) the only consideration is if it will be a lights-out event or if the cost is manageable. Then one decides if they should self-insure or take out a policy. The trouble in this particular case is none of these "policies" are guaranteed to pay off, sort of like taking home insurance from some guy in the Cayman Islands. Dicey at the best of times and one never knows if it is money well spent or they have been had by a charlatan until it is time to claim on the policy.

In short, if you cannot afford to deal with a blown motor, a few hundred dollars to possibly reduce this risk is PROBABLY money well spent. If you have the attitude of blowing a motor is a blessing in disguise as it will finally give you a reason to go for that 3.6 litre swap then I would be leaving the IMS bearing alone.

[moresquirt]

DOFstory - YouTube

[Alfieg23]

My mechanical experience is limited to periodic maintenance so I respect all those who offer solutions to the dreaded IMS failures. Personally, I have been dealing with Pedro since I purchased my Boxster over a year ago. I have the utmost confidence in Pedro's knowledge and truly believe he would not recommend anything he does not believe in 110%, including using the product or service on his own car which has over 200,000 miles clocked. As such, earlier this week, I had the DOF installed on my car at TuneRS Motorsports here in South Florida. I am very happy with my decision and am confident that I will not have any IMS issues going forward.

[thom4782]

Moresquirt:

DOF will not lubricate IMS bearings unless one removes the outer seal because the seal will prevent the injected oil from reaching the ball bearings and races.

IMS bearings rest on a support that plugs into the IMS tube. I'm guessing, but I don't know with 100% certainty, that the plug will stop oil from filling the IMS tube even if the rear seal leaks. The guys that rebuild Boxster engines will know better than me.

[mikefocke]

Daniel, well said.

My attitude was I'll replace it with an engine that has all 20+ failure points addressed because I can afford the down time, the emotional cost and the expense. Risk excites me and failure is familiar in my former profession. So I'd be willing to try lots of new solutions thought to be better in the same engine considering that most of those fixes have been out in the real world for several years on dozens of cars. Not for everyone.

What most of the folks are searching for (those that doesn't fit my profile) is what is the best means of eliminating risk? How to best balance the expense versus probable risk? New with great sounding theory versus well tried? Now or can I wait 10k miles? Oh, and while you have the transmission out, what else do you do that makes sense? How much is all this going to cost me? And how much new risk am I taking on (installer error, ultimately failed theory, random part failure) when I do what I decide to do?

Of course once you have the IMS solved (you think) some other random failure could bite you. Been known to happen.

The installer is enormously important. My wife just had a knee replaced. She searched 6 months to find the one Doctor that all patients with failed knee implants went to for correction. Took 20 minutes less than estimated. Successful. Experience matters inside the engine too whether designing a fix or just installing one.

[Jake Raby]

Ask 10 people and get 10 different answers. Some of us have IMS Retrofit components applied in numbers greater than ten thousand. Others do not.

[southernstar]

Jake, there is no arguing that with respect to the retrofit bearings. Nor is there, IMO, any argument that your IMS 'solution' is an elegant bit of engineering that effectively replaces the problematic IMS ball bearing with a bearing that mirrors the one on the other end of the IMS - one that has never been known to cause problems. You then, of course, provide for the required oil feed to the new bearing. While I suspect that the number of 'solutions' installed in customer cars to date is nowhere near 10,000 (and customer use would also be for less than a year), I am nevertheless satisifed that it will work as advertised based upon common sense.

Intellectually, however, I also think that the DOF plus a replacement bearing (in engines prior to the large single-row bearing), or just the DOF in large single-bearing engines, should prove to be an excellent solution. With proper oiling, I do not see how a ball bearing IMS bearing (and particularly, a dual row ceramic IMS bearing for the earlier car) should fail. Which 'solution' would I have more confidence in? For the single-row bearing engines, yours, hands down. For the later large bearings, if they still appear sound, I wonder if the cost of disassembly would be justified.

Brad

[moresquirt]

Excellent point Brad,but based on testing done by Raby years ago ,it dosent sound like a good idea,he has his reasons and i am sure would have come up with something similiar in design if he felt DOF ect had some merit.He already has direct oil feed at part off the solution so he knew about that benefit and simply removing the outer bearing seal would have been a simple soulution that he obviously decided againt for reason addressed below.
Having Jake chime in on this topic has definately got me questioning DOF as the final fix.I just wish i dident need to pull and split my motor to install.But thats the deal!

[thom4782]

There are many examples where common "engineering' sense proved disastrously wrong: the Titanic, the Tacoma Narrows bridge, the Challenger space shuttle, etc. Moreover, people assume that more oil is better simply because it's more oil. However, a fire hose doesn't water a small vegetable patch any better than a garden hose; a 10' deep swimming pool doesn't make a swimmer any wetter than a 5' deep one.

BTW: where are the facts / data that suggests dual row bearings fail because they don't get enough oil. Remember these failing bearings are sealed and therefore internally lubricated. Pumping external oil onto a sealed bearing won't help much if at all. The fix is to replace the OEM bearing with an unsealed dual row one. To date, there are no dual row LN Retrofit bearings failures even though these retrofits are splash oil lubricated. DOF contends it will extend the operating lifetimes of unsealed bearings, but the vendors won't say by how much. If they have, I haven't been able to find the estimate.

[Jake Raby]

Guys,
Nothing in the mechanical world is perfect. Every mechanical design has its compromises, whether they are cost, packaging, fitment or complexity.

I respect all competing technologies and those who have developed them. Without those types of things there would be nothing to inspire me to continually evolve the components, processes and tools. Its also a free market place and we are all given equal opportunities to create what we feel is the best way of solving any given problem.

The biggest compliment I've had in a while was ordering some "competing technology" (to evaluate on the dyno) and finding that the IMSB extraction tool that I invented was being bought from a distributor and then remarked and re-sold by the competitor, as their own. Thats nothing new, and to be expected.

Thats ok, the first generation tool is now out of date and the new tools are the way of the future. The current tools will soon go away and the competitor will have to do something else, or sell a tool with my trademark on it. The processes have never been easier and safer to carry out both from an extraction and installation point of view than whats made possible by this tool. Remember, without the tools and processes that I created these "options" wouldn't be out there; because you couldn't extract the bearings (at least the dual row IMSB) to allow for retrofits. When I developed this procedure it was thought to be "impossible" or black art. The day I posted the first IMSB retrofit procedure on my website it went viral and the site had over 30,000 unique visits in a 48 hour period. Today people forget about the conversations of yesterday where people were arguing about whether or not an IMSB could even be extracted. Then there was no other choice, either you bought what the pioneers offered, or you didn't buy anything. Its rather funny that one of the developers of competing technology actually utilized the LN IMSB in his own car prior to developing his component, but I respect him for admitting that. We even tried to help the guy out.

And yes, 2014 will find yet another IMSB retrofit evolution release. In fact, the "faultless tool" is required to install it. This unit is developed as a mid price point retrofit not costing as much as the IMS Solution, but offering more life than any single row 6204 style bearing. The IMS Solution solves the problem, but it isn't for everyone, primarily due to cost and the extra special care required to properly install the component.

Some contend that the bearing isn't the problem and that lubrication is. We contend that the OEM ball bearing and its multitude of moving parts, that lead to engine-wide collateral damage after bearing failure is the problem. Its okay to disagree and none of us are really ever going to be proven right, or wrong, so it really doesn't matter.

[Johnny Danger]

Jake,

Are the rumors that are spewing from the Vatican true - that you're coming out with the much anticipated "IMS Absolution" ?

[mikefocke]

I like your analysis. My thinkingis that you can reduce the Cayman Island factor by choosing an approach that has a track record established by thousands of experiences. Which means, you either live with the OEM odds that Porsche has admitted to (based on 100k plus experiences) or the LN bearing (based on 10k plus experiences). You might possibly do better in the long run with one of the oiled approaches but the statistics aren't there yet (not enough installs, not enough miles) so the odds of doing better really can't be known.

And choose an experienced installer no matter which kit you choose.