Pedros Techno DOF IMS fix?

[thom4782]

If you want to talk turkey, ask the DOF folks to put an actual number on the table of how many service hours or miles one can expect DOF to add to the lifetime of unsealed IMS bearings, especially new ceramic ones. I'm sure the Boxster community would like to know.

[mikefocke]

The concern with any new part is how it will hold up over time. Porsche tried 2 times to correct IMS issues and each time they only knew they failed and just how badly they failed after several years and many millions of owner driven miles. You figure they had test mules but the problems just didn't show up on their test engines.

Even the LN 3rd generation IMS replacement shaft/bearing for the '05.5-'08s has very few examples in use (less than 20 last time I asked) and it had been available for several years.

Decide if you want to be an early adopter or wait till several hundred have several years of user experience before you say "it is tested enough and I haven't seen any bad reports". And maybe wait till the installer has done a dozen?

You are trying to reduce risk...what approach is the least risky?

[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!

[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.