Wow! Been gone a few days and come back to an IMS Battle Royal!

Next week - tires!!!! :)


(and note to the OP: Remember doing nothing IS a valid option. Many of us have run cars to over 150,000 miles on the original IMS bearings)

I know, but my car is not used on a regular basis, and since those are the ones that statistically suffer the most,I'm getting really concerned now!!

You missed oil.

[QUOTE=Jake Raby;472579]Unless you are using the IMS Solution, then no plug is required with any other LN Engineering product. Why? Because the bearing has an inner seal that does a great job of keeping ANYTHING out of the IMS tube. Oil, air, gases (insert laughter here) or even smoke, after the engine explodes!

Last I looked Air is a gas, comprised of 78% N2, 21% 02 and various other gasses.

The gases in Earth's atmosphere include:
Nitrogen – 78 percent.
Oxygen – 21 percent.
Argon – 0.93 percent.
Carbon dioxide – 0.038 percent.

If its already lasted 72,000 miles, it is HIGHLY likely that it will last quite a bit more.

At your mileage, I'd be more concerned about 15 other things that are more likely to fail in the engine than the IMS bearing.

Have you worried about your cam chain tensioners lately?

Nope I haven't! Thanks for giving me something else to worry about �� what could go wrong with them,should I change them?

OK, now i think we need a list what can fail in the engine compartment. :D

IMS bearing
chain tensioners
chain rails
Lokasil coating in cylinders - seized-up piston
AOS
ignition coils
…

Any other "horror" ideas? :D

So don't drive your car. :D ;)

Regards
Markus

All cars have their weak points, if you look at other forums you'll quickly realise that. I'm just gonna change my ims bearing and try not to read any of the other "what ifs" that come up on forums. When I see people driving their boxsters and I know for sure that they know NOTHING about the problems that may arise in their engine I feel jealous of them, a pure case of "ignorance is bliss"!!
Btw, if I remove the green cam cover plugs to lock the cams,why cant I use them again, will they be totally destroyed? I dont feel like running around for what looks like a cheap piece of plastic!

Here is a short list. These are NOT what-if's. These are real world failures that can and do occur.

Now you know.

Of course, I am not doing this to scare anyone. I'm just saying that there is a lot of other things that can cause engine failure that have nothing to do with the IMS bearing. I'm the guy who has never replaced an IMS bearing in the three M96 powered cars that I have owned and all have gone over 145,000 miles.

M96 Failure List
1. Cylinder D-chunk
2. Cracked cylinder
3. Loose cylinder sleeve
4. Porous engine case
5. Spun rod bearing
6. Rod bolt failure
7. IMS bearing failure
8. IMS gears not fixed to intermediate shaft (press fit failure)
9. Timing chain failure
10. Timing chain tensioner (paddle) failure
11. Valve lifter failure
12. Valve lifter carrier failure
13. Crankshaft failure
14. Cracked head
15. Head gasket failure
16. Oil starvation (high g cornering)
17. Variocam servo failure
18. Blocked oil pickup (excess engine sealant, aka spaghetti)
19. Oil pump drive shaft failure (hex shaft)
20. AOS failure resulting in oil hydraulic lock in cylinders

Mr Stone gets us back to the facts.
And the useful extension of these sad facts is to list the solutions/preventative measures.
The dismissive assertions to drive it like the Dr.Ing. P intended ,don't magically solve many of these issues.
The good news is that there are remedies for most of these issues. But to address them is a economically non-viable. I know only because(illogically) I have done most of the remedies. So has Mr.Stone. It is painful.

There's also the solenoid, which I have had to replace just after I bought the car,because it was idling rough. That was a BIG expense!!

Can someone please tell me if ill be able to reuse the green cam plugs. I dont think they come with the retrofit so if I dont reuse them ill have to buy them separately,and the agent doesn't even have them in stock!

No, you can't use the old cam plugs as you have to destroy them when removing them....

It will probably easier for you to open an account with Pelican Parts and get them (and any other bits) sent to you. That's what I do as the parts pricing in Australia is ridiculous.

I've never had a problem in many years of dealing with Pelican. - the correct item always being packaged and sent to my home address at a good price. Of course I don't know the customs duty or exchange rate applicable to Malta, but you can always investigate......

To be honest I had a not so good experience with pelican not long ago. They didn't have my items in stock, took them a week to get them from their supplier, then when I got my parcel it was the wrong one and mine had went to someone else, then they told me that they're going to have to order my items again from their supplier,because again they didn't have the items in stock. So,as i had paid for express postage and this was taking ages,i just told them to cancel my order. I then ordered my items from design 911 in the UK. I looked for these cam cover plugs on their website but didn't find any.
Do you know if normal rubber grommets will work,or do they have to be specifically those covers. What is the purpose of these covers exactly,is it not to let grime and dirt in?

I know I might sound stupid and that this has been discussed many times, but what about the ims retrofit bearing together with the oil fed flange from the ims solution? I know you obviously thought about this,but why is it better to run the retrofit on splash oil, would more oil do it more harm than good?

You will need new ones, as the old ones will be damaged when removing them. They need to be "picked" out with a pointed tool.

The LN bearing is designed to work without an oil feed system, and the flange from the IMS Solution will not fit with any ball bearing unit, it is designed to only be used with the Solution solid bearing.

I lay awake most nights worrying about whether or not my license plate light is working.:eek:

Oh ok. But my question is, what will happen if you add something similar to the retrofit bearing, will more oil end up doing any harm to it? I'm asking because I was always under the impression that any rotating part works better when it has oil being fed to it. Are ceramic bearing that much different to steel bearings in that just splash oil will do?
What would be the results if you had to compare a normal retrofit installation compared to one that is fed oil, which one would last longest? Most probably Jake has gone through this already,just curious to know what the results will be.

I have only one comment here...
Don't overthink this.
The LN dual row bearing was designed to work in its intended environment.
Added "improvements" are unnecessary.
You can heed the advice of JFP and Jake Raby, they know what they are doing...
So maybe that was more than one comment, but I was on a roll.