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Originally Posted by Dave S.
This is my first Porsche so bear with me here, but until I was researching this car I had never even heard of an Intermediate Shaft before. I've never had a car or motorcycle with a boxer type engine before, so I assume it's something unique to that design.
From what I've learned on this forum, I was surprised to see the bearing that fails is such a small unit. What function does the IMS perform in the engine?
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I've never seen an intermediate shaft used on anything but a Porsche. Someone else will know, but I suspect it may be a remnant of the old VW boxer 4 that started it all.
It's a shaft that spins below the crankshaft and is driven off the crankshaft. It drives a few accessories, and through a set of chains, also drives the camshafts. On the water cooled engines, the intermediate shaft is driven off the crankshaft by a chain as well.
In the most recent engines, Porsche has eliminated the intermediate shaft and drives the camshafts from the crankshaft, as other OHC engines do.