Shavings from old failed IMS (??) now showing up?

Here is a twist that has us wondering what is going on. In Nov 2012 I bought a 2002 996 base model and had a PPI done. PPI showed metal in the oil filter and a leaking RMS and the seller kindly volunteered to pay for an LN Engineering IMS bearing and new RMS. I'm happy as I got a low mileage car with a fixed IMS/RMS for no additional expense. Today, over a year, 12k miles, and 3 oil changes later, my mechanic finds metal bits in the oil filter. They are small (under 1 mm), magnetic, shiny silver, and quite a few of them (photo below). We popped the oil pan cover and the oil pan is completely clean. The engine starts up and runs without any clanking noise. I've already heard back from the shop that did the IMS replacement work and since the LN Engineering part uses ceramic bearings, they will not leave magnetic parts if they happen to fail. So it has to be something else. Since I got the car, two oil changes showed a clean oil filter. After the last of those two oil changes, I had a good track day, and had installed racing pads and Pilot Super Sports so I know I was pushing G forces on the car that it had not had done to it before, and probably longer high RPMs than it been run before. Is it possible that some old pieces of the failing IMS bearing were being churned up and ended up caught by the filter? Or is it something else entirely that is failing? My mechanic ran through a few other scenarios but none of them seemed to fit this type of metal particles. In the end he said to drive it 1000 miles and come back in to inspect the oil filter to decide what to do next. He has seen lots of good and bad 996 engines and over the 17+ years I've been taking my P-cars to him has not steered me wrong.

Sorry Bro but theres your answer. I dont get it how people on here dont learn from others misery or at least read Jakes info before they do this. And,,, if there were metal shavings before they replaced the bearing, it may have been too late. The engine should have been ensured to qualify for IMSB replacement before it was done.

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Err how would it be too late? The purpose of the oil filter is to filter the very exact material. You very well may have picked up stuff that settled around the head pumps when you were pushing hard Gs. If there's nothing in the pan, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

The engine should have failed qualification if any debris was in the oil. Material laden oil WILL take out the replacement IMSB and it will happen in a hurry, if the components shedding material doesn't break first. Put simply, an engine with material laden oil should never be retrofitted until the course of the material is identified and corrective action is taken, with the oil system purged many times and short service intervals should always be part of that engine's future. Shops are just throwing bearings in any engine, they don't give a damn- its not their technology.

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Pretty sure it's a ceramic hybrid, the races are still steel.

Contacted a local indy about getting my IMSB done in the near future: engine must be evaluated for retrofit suitability BEFORE simply upgrading. Having a medical background, this approach makes sense to me and agree with KK EDIT: looks like JR already pointed this out

I instructed over 400 technicians all over N America in 2013 about this… But many simply did not listen, I even give absolute directives about what to do and what to do if you choose to retrofit anyway, and kill the warranty. Retrofitting an engine thats shedding material makes zero sense. I turned down one earlier this week, packed it up and sent it home today. It was losing pistons.

Jake many are listening but few are willing to admit it.

Two oil/filter services with no metal trash and then one with and after a real hard track day with higher than before cornering and braking g-forces. Going to have to guess some trash in the sump was stirred up and ingested by the oil pump through the pick up. The bits were smashed in the oil pump and caught by the filter. If something was coming apart I think your track day would have come to a premature end. If the engine had trash in it when the IMSB was done I think the engine would have manifested problems before now. Up to you what you do but you might listen to your mechanic and drive the car a while and check the filter again. 1000 miles seems rather high. I mean if you are really worried run the engine at idle until warm and then remove the oil filter housing and check for metal bits. If none the clean the housing and install a new filter and top up with oil and drive the car. I suspect the engine's fine -- no guarantees though of course -- but if at any time you hear scary noises shut off the engine ASAP and get the car to your tech on the back of a flat bed tow truck.

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How does this apply to the IMS Guardian? Are you saying that once the guardian detects metal it's too late? Or is it that the first metal detected would be from the IMSB, but if metal detected is determined to be coming from the engine, then it is too late?

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Once the pistons start wearing/scoring the bore will one always have metal particulate showing up in the filter?

Thanks for all the feedback. I know there is a strong debate in these and other forums about LNE's conservatism, and that's fine, but that's not what I'm asking. I don't give a whit about what should have been done or didn't get done or whatever, that's all water under the bridge. I have a more pragmatic question: given what is known today about this engine, and the reality of financial constraints, what are the reasonable next steps? If I had $30k lying around, sure a top-quality rebuild would be a great option, but that's far from the case. One poster has a medical background and mentioned his opinion. My background is engineering and I am tuned to finding a cost effective solution to difficult problems that are likely not well understood in entirety. I also know that getting to a failure rate of 0% or 1% or something that might be acceptable to an LNE is exorbitantly more expensive than getting to a failure rate of 10%, which might be more in the ballpark of acceptable to me for this case, i.e. the path I take from here might be wrong 10% of the time if I did it 100 or 1000 times. Since the engine will eventually fail and/or require a rebuild, of course hopefully 100k+ from here, that's perfectly fine. A couple of other things: 1) Nobody has mentioned whether the flakes in the photo are in fact typical of a stock IMSB failure, and the magnitude (tiny amount, big amount, ...). Is there a typical appearance? Could this be something else? Especially considering a clean oil pan and two oil changes and 10k miles without any metal in the filter, and about 3k miles since the track day. 2) I've heard from two mechanics with a stake in this specific case, and they both say the same thing, which is it is unlikely to be a problem, but to check the filter after a little time. These are both experienced with IMS and its replacement and, maybe more importantly, know the history and current status of this engine. Which is not to say they are correct, but they are also making a cost-vs-benefit judgment. 3) I appreciate the responses from Jake (and Charles through a separate email). I understand their conservative viewpoint is appropriate for them and for LNE, but it is one of numerous valid viewpoints. Still, they've seen more cases than probably anyone outside the factory and dealer network, so they are important. 4) Macster's input is interesting that if there were a lot of junk floating around, the engine would likely have been toast already. So at the moment I believe my next step is to drive it for a few hundred miles, inspect the oil housing and filter, and see if the info is different. What to do after that is not yet clear to me.

Anything like this would scare the crap out of all of us, I still have the std bearing in at 45k, but still inspect my filter 3x a year ~1,500miles. If I were in your shoes and the engine is running fine, I would run it for 50 miles and check the filter if ok then go to 250 miles and check, if that is ok then check it every 500 - 1,000 miles. For the cost of the filters it’s either cheap peace of mind or you will very quickly see more debris and can make the decision what to do next. Good luck, we all sincerely hope that this is a bizarre one off

No one can tell you what YOU should do. We can only give our opinions on what we would do. I can tell you exactly what I would do. I would drop the engine and begin to disassamble it to check for damged/worn internals. Clean/repair/replace parts as needed. Install and be done. Sorry to harp on this but if you DONT have mechanic ability why on earth buy a car that had metal in the oil in the first place? You are finding out the hard way, rebuilding the M96 aint cheap.

Are the flakes ferrous?

^^ Along that line, a magnetic drain plug definitely wouldn't hurt.

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Isn't "drop the motor" the last step in every possible path through the official KK 996 Troubleshooting Flowchart? I think your heart's in the right place, but it still doesn't make OP feel any better about getting kicked in the ribs. Maybe a thread about metal in the oil isn't the best time for you to explain how stupid you think someone is...

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Yes, ferrous.

Do a search for "flakes in oil", "metal in oil", etc. You'll probably get hundreds of hits. Most of those people are probably still driving the car today, unless they went into a forum induced panic and dumped it at Carmax. Engines wear, and a byproduct of that wear is metallic particles that are swept away by the oil and captured by the filter, which is doing its job BTW. If you cut open most oil filters on any vehicle or run a magnetic drain plug you will likely find some amount of metallic residue. You are assuming that it is IMS related, but have no facts to back that up. Contrary to what you read here, every M96 isn't destined to grenade into a million pieces. I have owned five M96 powered Porsches with between 60k and 85k, all were on their original IMS. Only my current car has had the IMS done by the previous owner at 90k. Yes, a stock M96 can make it to 90k. If you are really stressed you could change/inspect the filter again and send the oil in for analysis, at least that provides you with some data. But what then? You really have two choices: 1. Tear down an engine that is running well. At that point you might as well rebuild it to some extent, because it's already out of the car and apart and that's not cheap. So thousands of dollars later you have an engine that is running well. Not sure you've accomplished much, except spent a lot of money. 2. Drive the damn thing. Monitor the condition like you would any other car. If it blows up, spend marginally more money than option #1 assuming some parts are now outside of spec for a rebuild. Put on your rational thinking hat, ignore the forum IMS frenzy, and really think this through.

I agree with your mechanics then that the best course of action now is to drive it and monitor the oil filter frequently and hope the shedding will subside (in case it was shedded prior to the IMSB retro). Also +1 on magnetic drain plug like SCHELL suggested. I would also consider Jake's spin-on filter that filters 100% of the oil. Of course if something is actively shedding metal then none of the above will help but we don't know that yet. Oh yea, also keep your ears open for ANY abnormal engine noise, idling or at speed.

The spin-on adapter...hm. If you install it, all of the oil is sure to be filtered...but you won't be able to (easily) inspect the contents of the filter. The spin-on filter definitely won't hurt, but it will make it tougher to see if it's still shedding.

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Yea, all you need is a filter cutter though. Can always revert back to factory filter system if the shedding subsides later anyway.

Fair enough. Looks like I need to google "filter cutter."

Collect the metal in the filter and have it analyzed. It might give you insight to wear it came from. Mike

I got this one based on someone's recommendation. Haven't tried it yet though. Longacre Oil Filter Cutter (LA77750) : Amazon.com : Automotive Longacre Oil Filter Cutter (LA77750) : Amazon.com : Automotive

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Just a fancy name for something similar to a can opener

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Yes, along with dropping the oil pan for inspection, I got the mag plug put in. Definitely. That's pretty standard.

Come to think about it, you could also install an IMS guardian jr that will monitor in real-time for you. You already have the pan cleaned and hose flakes are probably not enough to set it off. A false alarm is still bettern than a blown engine anyway.

Why not just send the oil for oil analysis like blackstone? That will take the guess work out of what material it is, condition of oil, etc.

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I already know it's shiny, silver, and ferrous, so it's almost certain to be steel. Oil analysis won't help identify the source. The condition of the oil would seem to be a different issue, unless it identifies an internal leak or something (mixing water, fuel, etc. into the oil). Still, an oil analysis every so often is not a bad idea. I have a couple of Blackstone containers on the shelf.

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These work great, just buy one if go to the full flow filter.

Employ the LN Spin On Filter Adaptor. Why? Because there's 100% of the oil being filtered, whereas the OEM filter will bypass oil to the main bearings at start up. Then employ a "filter mag" too, along with a magnetic drain plug.

Get one of those electromagnets from the scrap yard and bolt it to the sump. Nothing will pass by that sucker.

Similar situation here. First oil change showed a few tiny flattened bits like yours. But went way too long on the oil change. Installed mag drain plug. Second and third oil changes at 3000 miles, no bits, and mag drain clean. Put on 16,000 miles, and 2 DE days, no issues. Just keep an eye on the filter is my advice. 2003 Carrera 4S Speed Yellow / 1955 356 Continental 1500 Rust Red

If old ims material got flushed out due to tracking and didn't cause major damage because the filter did its job, sure, just pull the filter a few times after 100 miles or so , to see if more material is coming ... If major damage is already done you are looking at cost of rebuild anyway at some point .. If not and the material goes away you got lucky and the filter did its job ....

No expert here. But, when I went to get my IMS done (by a flat 6 certified guy) he said there was metal everywhere from the IMS and recommended a rebuild for 15K. He did replace the IMS bearing with the LN one, flushed the engine a couple times and gave it back to me. He said I would probably get some sort of premature engine failure. I changed the oil at 100 miles and saw a few flakes, then at 1000 miles and saw none. Now I am at 3000 and will probably do again soon. My input. These flakes are not from the IMS. Why? You went two oil changes with none, so that was probably the original problem (that was solved with the original change) and 2 - they look nothing like the flakes I saw in my oil. Mine were much smaller. I hate to add opinions to highly charged debates but take it for what it is. There are multiple causes for metal in the drain. I would drive the car a little, change the oil again, and if still present then go on the hunt for the cause.

Oh, and there are other options besides a 15-25K rebuild. I did a lot of research. UFO motorsport will rebuild it for $7500 if you ship him a working engine or car. Read good things about them and talked with the guy. I decided against a rebuild but was and still am considering this.

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Please PM me the name of this shop. Were they an IMS Solution Certified Installer?

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I didn't know we still had people with common sense on this forum, that's refreshing. Or even better, comments that are actually helpful for the OP!

Debris thats clearly noted by the naked eye is not normal for any engine outside a piece of heavy equipment made by Caterpillar. In fact these particles are generally too large to even be detected by a standard used oil analysis, a particulate test is required. These tests are only offered by people like Caterpillar, who do them for us. That should help folks understand just how abnormal that these particles are when found within an engine. My 88 Carrera is 2K miles from hitting 300k on the original engine thats never been gone into at all. When I carry out a service on it, dump the oil through a paint strainer and cut the filter open there's not a single particle thats notable to the naked eye, and there never has been, while I have owned the car. Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment. If you have debris in the oil employ the items stated in this thread and purge the oil over and over again. DO NOT UTILIZE AN ENGINE FLUSH! This will simply break all the particles loose and feed them into the lifters and variable valve timing components, where they will be captured and retained with an impossibility of being purged. Lifters have only one way in and no way back out, unless debris passes through the piston area, which will not happen. If we are carrying out an IMSR we take 1/2 day to qualify the engine for the procedure and take no chances. This may be the reason why we've carried out more than 350 IMSR procedures over the past 5 years and have never experienced a single failure or complication. Too many shops just want to throw the part in, make their money and send the car down the road like it just had a brake job. They don't care, because they didn't develop the technology, the tooling or the retrofit process. If it fails, they just blame it on the bearing.

Jake many of us believe you and know you are right but many on here continue to post the same denial nonsense repeatedly.

Err didn't new/remanned engine end up shedding some eye-visible metal shavings during the break-in?

I've seen lots of threads and filter pics showing the tiny metal bits. The big ones are flat and about 0.5 mm in diameter. I'm guessing a few showing up on the filter is somewhat normal for this engine. Maybe someone can pinpoint the usual source(s)? 2003 Carrera 4S Speed Yellow / 1955 356 Continental 1500 Rust Red

After reading this thread and others, here is what I'm going to do. First, often when there are strongly held opposing beliefs there is a lack of data that would make one or the other (or neither) a fact instead of a belief. That seems to be the case here. Do these engines normally shed particles or not? (see opposite answers from two people who have significant common experience: Charles Navarro : "These engines do generate LOTS of ferrous debris" and Jake Raby: in this thread : "Debris thats clearly noted by the naked eye is not normal for any engine outside a piece of heavy equipment made by Caterpillar." We also seem to have a known case (DaveCarrera4) of an engine throwing ferrous particles just once, then doing fine afterwards for 16k miles including 2 DE events. This is not to dispute anybody's opinions (how could I?) but to point out the difficulty of drawing certain conclusions. So it's simple, I have to treat this as a game of chance. BTW, my mechanic takes exactly that approach: "They're all a crap shoot" (and this before the metal finding last week). I think he's right. We take one step at a time and take the best path we can each step. That said, I believe it's possible that the one significant thing I am doing differently after getting the car, after having put on better tires and Pagid Orange pads, is braking a lot harder, especially at a DE event. The DE event, new tires, and new pads all were done between the last two oil changes. The PO did not do DE events with this car, and says he had the car on the track "for about a dozen laps". PO is a longtime Porsche club sport racer and has organized the CS races for one of the PCA regions for many years, but ran his own race-prepared 70s era 911 for that. So, it is possible that I've put higher G forces on the car than it has had before, especially over the course of a full DE day. Given that there were two oil changes with no metal, then new tires, pads, and a DE day, and the next oil change had metal, I am willing to put some reasonable probability on that scenario. However, I don't think we can say that the metal bits are from any particular source. See Charles' comment: "These engines do generate LOTS of ferrous debris". So a little debris may well be normal, and what I saw this time was an accumulation over 40k miles and 12 years that was knocked loose. Or not. Who knows authoritatively? Nobody, unless the engine is torn down to see. BTW, this car was stored winters, oil changed every year, so it could have had some rough starts over the years; I don't really know. Now, should the engine be torn down as a preventative or diagnostic measure? No. Here is my reasoning. The engine is in a certain state right now (maybe good, maybe bad), whether I tear it down or not. I don't know the state unless I tear it down. What does a teardown buy me? Two things: 1) the knowledge of whether it's about to go or not -- a psychological comfort 2) some monetary savings by having to replace fewer parts But the cost of the teardown could also be totally wasted, in which case I bought some comfort and little else. But there are a lot of other comfort items I can buy for $15k. (Yes, these costs are rough and may be wrong and excessive one way or the other; if someone would like to do a better calculation please do so...) A teardown at this stage should be thought of as insurance. It limits the total cost to some number, say $15k. That's the cost of the insurance policy. What is the policy insuring against? A busted engine, which might cost $20k to rebuild or replace. This is not a very good insurance policy unless the chance of a blowup is nearly 100%. I'm going to guess that it's more like 1 in 3 or 1 in 4, in which case the insurance policy is much more expensive than the likely cost of doing nothing. For example, say the chance of a busted engine is 1 in 3 from here forward (due to this issue). The policy costs $15k. The expected cost of letting it go is 1/3 * $20k + 2/3 * $0 = $6.7k. Under this scenario the cost of the policy is outrageously higher than doing "nothing" (which of course is not "nothing", see below). The big leverage point is doing low-cost things to reduce the chance of a blowup. For this, monitoring particle production through either frequent inspections of the filter, drain plug, or something like the IMS Guardian appears to be the best option. A regular Durametric code pull of engine health may be another (I have one already so it's zero cost). The key is cost effective means of eliminating/confirming potential sources or detecting change. I'll start with filter monitoring and Durametric at initially frequent intervals, assuming that if something goes really badly wrong, it will be sooner rather than later. Also using a spin-on oil filter might be a good option if there is debris, even small amounts.

Generally these engines create a lot of metal in the oil because they have 27 documented modes of failure. I can't think of a single one of those failures that have been documented that would not have metal laden oil associated with it in come capacity. The spin on filter adaptor, mag drain plug and a filter mag are your best lines of defense. At the same time, when applying intervention metal laden oil can be a determining factor that must be taken seriously.

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Thanks for the response, Jake, but even if every failure shows metal debris, it is not the same as saying every time metal debris is found, there is (or will be) a failure. The latter is the case I have to assess (and the former is the data you have in spades). Clearly there is some correlation, but without a different kind of data set I can't conclude much about my case with certainty. Thanks very much for this advice. That is really useful and I will definitely follow up on this.

If that debris finds its way between critical clearances, at minimum you'll experience accelerated wear. These are very tight clearance engines, and that reduces the margins of error. Often times the primary failure found with these engines is NOT what takes the engine out, its the collateral damage with secondary and tertiary impacts that equate the bigger issues. One has to live a life of working with the failure of these engines for a decade to understand that its the same story over and over again. See a few hundred scattered specimens and its all pretty clear. This is how I take the words out of the mouths of owners routinely when answering the failure hotline.

The sky is falling

No, thats tomorrow… Monday is the day when the failure calls roll in.

I believe you are taking the right approach. Be vigilant, take a few low cost precautions, and enjoy the car. Keep us appraised of the future filter inspections. 2003 Carrera 4S Speed Yellow / 1955 356 Continental 1500 Rust Red

Appreciate your input on topics like this, Jake. In trying to talk myself out of thinking my 2002 Targa with 82k miles on original IMS is going to blow up every time I start it (mainly because I monitor this forum), I googled how many 996's (non-turbo) were built, looks to be around 150,000. Would you mind telling us how many catastrophic 996 failures you've seen? Trying to get to an estimate of the failure rates. Or would you have an estimate yourself? Thanks, Chris

There's no way to calculate the failure rate, because the information to support the equation does not exist. Today I had 4 failure consultations.

Update: after 500 "spirited" miles on the new oil and filter, I went in again today and we inspected the filter. Same issue: many (I'm guessing 100-200) small, shiny metal bits. So something is clearly an ongoing problem that requires attention. Mechanic's assessment: failing IMS bearing (rings or bolts are other possible sources but much less likely). Given that the bearing was replaced 12k ago with the LNE part, it could mean either the new bearing's steel parts are failing, or there's metal debris left from the original bearing. Either way the next step is inspecting the IMS bearing area for damage or debris. This is the likely problem area. If not, something else is failing and a rebuild is called for.

The most likely case is the original bearing failure process created material laden oil which has attacked the replacement bearing and is forcing its failure through greatly accelerated wear. Read this page, all the info is here. There are things that MUST be done if ANY material laden oil exists prior to an IMS Retrofit procedure, but shops are not oing this and they are even retrofitting engines that should be disqualified. http://imsretrofit.com/bearing-already-failing/ This must be taken seriously, as the foreign debris could also be from another failing component that was damaged by the material shed from the original bearing failure process, or otherwise. This is especially true with camshaft and lifter materials as their material fits the description of what you have described. Engines filled with debris consume themselves. The chances of natural selection occurring are much greater after a failure if the correct regimen is not followed verbatim, and common sense is not applied. As it stands now, we could save the engine, (more than likely) keep driving it, and no one can save it.

Well folks, the car is now on its way to Jake for a rebuild. Reasoning: 1) There is something creating new or recirculating old metal bits, and not a transient problem of one thing that got shaken loose or something like that. It could be parts of the old IMS bearing, the races of the new one, cams, lifters, or other components. So in the "game of chance" I described above, the likelihood of failure is high. This tilts the probabilities strongly toward doing the rebuild -- not to diagnose only, but to go in and replace everything that is needed. 2) One question was why is the oil pan clean? I figured it is an easy calculation. If I found 200 visible small metal bits in the filter after 500 miles of driving, that's one metal bit every couple of miles. I don't know how often the oil gets recirculated but I'm sure it runs a good number of full circulations in 2-3 miles. That means that at any point in time, there are likely to be zero visible metal bits in the oil. So a clean oil pan is not inconsistent with 100-200 bits in the filter. 3) As part of the rebuild, Flat6 will replace known weak parts in the engine with better reliability parts, based on their experience with these engines. If I want to keep this car for 100k - 150k miles (which is my intent, and was from day one), this seems like the best way to do so. 4) If the engine fails, the cost to repair is (more or less as I estimated) maybe $5k - $8k more than doing it now, but there is also a chance that it would be too damaged to rebuild at all in which case the cost would jump by $20k or more. I am not happy about this, I am pained to be spending this on a nearly new car, and not have the car as my DD for anywhere between 3 months to a year (depending on what needs to be done), but this is to my eyes the best way forward.

Can I ask how much an engine rebuild costs? If its still running well, another option would be to dump the car at a place like Carmax before it dies. You'll take a loss on the car but financially it might make more sense. Thanks, Chris

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I am sure the next owner would appreciate that.

Deleted. /

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And then what? Start the whole process over again with another car whose odds are the same for developing an engine related problem? I'll guess that the financial difference is less than you may think, between the sales price to Carmax (or other) and what it will be worth again after the rebuild. No, the idea here is that I get (or, have forced on me) the opportunity to make substantial improvements in long term longevity of the car. The color, X74, and tweaks I've made to it are of significant value. After rebuild, the car will be far more of a known quantity, I believe. BTW I had an '87 for 16+ years before this one. That year range developed "in a small percentage of cars" loose valve guide seals that eventually produce extreme oil usage, smoking, and failing smog tests. Guess what, mine got it starting at 90k, burned a quart of oil/200 miles, and smoked like an 18 wheeler until it finally failed smog. I had the heads rebuilt at 122k to fix that problem along with some part improvements for reliability. Maybe I have bad luck, or maybe it's a typical thing to need a rebuild on these engines before you can take them to 150k - 200k.

****ty luck Mike. I'll be very interested to hear the exact diagnosis on what was scraping loose inside, and what parts are replaced. Please keep a good list for us. Are you shipping the car to GA? 2003 Carrera 4S Speed Yellow / 1955 356 Continental 1500 Rust Red

Sorry guys, all I was trying to get at is that at some point it doesn't make sense to pay to have a car repaired. $15k to repair a $20k car might be getting to that point... Just trying to offer up some other options for the OP to get out of this situation with the least financial loss. Some ideas that come to mind: - Carmax option (I estimate you could sell and buy a new 996, install IMS/RMS/clutch for $7500 loss, half of $15k engine rebuild) - Buy an aftermarket insurance plan (could also argue immoral like Carmax option) - Sell the car private party as-is (full disclosure) to someone who would rebuilt it (big loss) - Part it out (big loss)

I think you're pretty close to the net cost of "The Carmax Option" from my POV although I would have put it a bit higher. But it doesn't help any of the other aspects of engine weaknesses that the "new" car might show. I get dealt a whole new hand... which is fine, at a certain price. What put me over the line on this is that with the net cost of rebuilding against the other options, I'm buying some amount of certainty of a longer engine life. I get to see part of the rest of the deck that I'm being dealt from. This would not be the case for another car off the lot or a crate factory engine, and has as much to do with Jake's reputation and experience as any other consideration. I had to mull that over and in the end it was worthwhile. The higher confidence of being able to take the car on long trips, track days, push it hard on back roads made it an easier decision. Still, like my mechanic says, "They're all a crap shoot".

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no need to say you are sorry especially after some one typed morals and selling a used car on the same page. many of these sellers would not disappoint and dump their car if is was on them.

We do t "Rebuild", we reconstruct... That means throwing away all of the bad, some of the good and applying our developments throughout. Internally we retain only 6 major components, if those 4 of them are altered from their OEM state. We literally throw away 100-120 pounds of components from every reconstruction process. This takes roughly 130 hours of one human's life to carry out from beginning to end. Generally speaking in Stage 1 terms this is an 18,500 process, plus any collateral damages. It appears that Mike may have dodged the collateral damage bullet by acting now. We'll try to repair the engine, before going all the way. I only have one slot left for all of 2014 for a reconstruction and I only want Mike to fill it if he absolutely has to. If Mike wants we'll share the documentation of the process here.

Did you drop the oil pan ? any picture of what is in it ? you may find big chunk in there that could tell you a lot more. drop the oil pan, it is fast and easy, and the most informative at this point. After that, have a mechanic look into your cylinder with an inspection camera, from the spark plug tube, they may also see something and give an idea of what create the problem. valves or cylinder wall... that is what I would do first before tearing the whole thing apart.

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Based on what Mike and I spoke about in a phone consult, some of this has been carried out already. Trust that no matter what has been done previously, that we will carry out our own semi-invasive evaluation prior to any full blown teardown. With such low mileage on this engine my primary objective will be to seek out the source of the wear metals and then work to qualify the engine for a repair. If collateral damages have occurred, the plan changes and we must go all the way. Oil is the lifeblood of the engine, if it becomes material laden, things change. We would much rather carry out a repair to an engine with so few miles as to reconstruct it. This comes from every point of view, especially scheduling and of course the cost that the owner sees.

sound advice.

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Sound advice.

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Thinking through this logically... Yes, dropping the oil pan was the first thing after the oil change 2 weeks (and 500 miles) ago. It was completely clean. But in another post in this thread (just a few back) I made a quick calculation that predicts that with the particles I'm counting in the filter, the expected outcome is in fact a clean oil pan. So, a clean oil pan says nothing. Then the next question is how much more diagnosis to do without dropping the engine, including borescope (horoscope?) or whatever else. I can't see a scenario where diagnosis tells me "don't worry, it's nothing." Any diagnosis from additional non-invasive strategies that I can think of simply give me different causes for a rebuild, so I decided there is no value in that. So I don't see an option (aside from selling a lemon to some unsuspecting buyer, which, sorry, I can't do) aside from engine teardown or replacement. I sent an oil sample to Blackstone Labs which should be analyzed within the week, just in case there is anything useful there which could help Flat6's diagnosis.

We can swap in the X74 also!

This engine had no debris in the sump, but failed 5 oil analysis. It had zero symptoms and was taken apart on hypothesis only. The debris was very fine, not able to be seen with the naked eye. Remember: a standard UOA WILL NOT show particles that are large enough to be seen with a naked eye! For this, a particulate test (carried out by Caterpillar) is required. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...4914693&type=3 We call those Carmax cars "Max Attacks" and trust me, there's plenty of Max Attacks carried out weekly. Karma is a real mean bitch to those who pass things off like this. Glad to see Mike is a man of integrity.

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Couldn't agree more. Apparently, this is a generally accepted practice, which blows me away. I'd sell my car as a roller and take the loss before I'd sell it without disclosing that the engine was shedding metal. Integrity is doing the right thing even when nobody's watching...I'm truly stunned that people think this is OK.

I have people routinely want us to patch things up "Just so it can be sold". I reply that we will not do this, and if their car is here we won't touch it any further. In the past aircooled Porsche owners never even considered this type of activity. In all my years with aircooled cars I never had anyone ask me that sort of thing, and I never had people "give up" on cars. Maybe twice someone sold a car broken, today it happens weekly.

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Based on past observations, I believe IMS Guardian = Carmax Trade-ins.

Guardians have led to way too many "Max Attacks"..

Selling a broken down car is an SOP in the used car market. There is no honor or integrity in this business. I worked at largest Toyota dealer in the Bay Area during my freshman year of college; every day it was either US fooking them or them fooking us on the car. Substitute the car for an investment product If your adviser comes to you and says: Well Django, there is an issue with one of your major equity positions in P996. We know that P996 will go into BK in a month and you will lose your money, plus due to the special clause in the BK proceedings you will be on the hook for the full value of your investment in addition to everything you lost, on top of that I can assure you that your position will never appreciate. Your other option is to sell the P996 stock now and take 10% loss and move the money into CVETTE stock. Come on. Remove the emotions from the equation when dealing with cars.

^ I believe your example would construe insider trading, and everyone knows that when you are guilty of insider trading, you lose your seat on the exchange and all of your assets because the guy you bought the crop report from winds up in a cage with a gorilla headed for Africa.

Sell 30 April at 142!

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I don't equate a personal asset such as a sports car with a financial asset at all. Investments are all about the trade off between risk and reward. Automobiles are basically an appliance with an assumed function and varying reliability. But being an asset that is personally used every day, it is assumed that you are aware of the reliability or fitness of your car for duty and passing bad goods on to the market, without disclosure, is dishonest. I would not argue with you that people routinely sell their known problem car to either a private buyer or to a dealer, but the prevalence of this action it does not make it right. 'my two cents......

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Niiiiiiiiiiiiice!

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I am questioning which reality you live in. Get a job in my industry and you will very quickly understand that this is a reailty. The mindless pu$$ies working at SEC are clueless and useless. You can walk up to their office with huge banner saying I RUN A P&D, they will not turn an eye.

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There is no doubt that many people would simply trade the car in, cover up or fail to disclose the issue. You seem to believe that most people would if they found themselves in that situation. As we speak, my 2005 Jag S-type is being used by one of my sons. The car is in good shape but has a well known issue with the throttle body sensor that sends the car into limp mode (instantly drops the car to 25mph) without warning. Very dangerous especially when on the freeway. The cost to repair. $3500. The value of the car. Barely $5,000 if that. It happens every 2-3 weeks, we disconnect the battery for 10 minutes. Check engine light goes away and its good until the next incident. Could I trade it in? Sure. Sell to an unsuspecting private party? Sure. Would I? No. The car is going to the Jag Indy Thursday for a rebuilt TBS for ONLY $1,000. Then I am going to get rid of it.

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and some might say you are patching it up as cheap as possible to sell it

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That may be so. But the buyer will be made aware of the issue and have the receipt for the work and the warranty that comes with it. At least "some" can't say I screwed someone by not doing anything and willfully failed to disclose the issue. Big difference don't you think?

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I suspect that most people wouldn't break into someone's house and steal $15,000 worth of stuff, but somehow the idea of offloading a ticking time bomb that has the potential to cost the next owner $10-15k is just fine. In "my reality," the two scenarios are equally shady.

whatever numbers work for you dude.

In other news, I still think the Porsche rotisserie in your avatar is cool.

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Watch "Suckers" movie. It gives a fairly accurate portrayal of car trade. Business is Business 5CHN3LL; and selling is selling. You have valid points, but morality and "fairness" have very little room in car game. I will leave it at that.

I buy a lot of cars broken and hold them for people who want a Raby powered Porsche. I had the opportunity to do it so much that I started another business as a Georgia registered Used Car Dealer. We buy the cars broken at fair prices, and sell them fully repaired with full documentation of what was done, or we hold them to be used as a foundation for one of our engines. Its a good deal for everyone when we do this. Too many people don't do the right thing though, and thats why so many first time Porsche owners get stuck with someone else's problems, unknowingly.

Just when I start warming up to the 996s, I run into a thread like this one. Guess I should keep an eye on my wife's Boxster. That said, if I ever do get a 996, it will be with the IMS upgrade already done before any metal debris was found. That's how we bought the Boxster. If the engine ever goes, I'm calling these guys: http://renegadehybrids.com/

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I doubt, even adjusted for inflation, that the air cooled motors were worth $20,000 or whatever a 996 crate motor goes for now a days. I'm fairly sure a full rebuild by your shop is 5 figures as well. So comparing the relatively simple flat 6 air cooled power plant replacement or rebuild isn't realistic IMHO. The current book value of a 996 makes the decision to spend so much on a rebuild or replacement a difficult one. Not that I condone the carmax route. Those that have tackled this themselves are the furthest ahead monetarily. 2003 Carrera 4S Speed Yellow / 1955 356 Continental 1500 Rust Red

Porsche aircooled engines have always been more expensive to work with than an M96. No one that places a monetary value on these cars will reconstruct the engine, only those who love the car. I have 30 of those people in my queue now. Porsche engines have cost more than the car is worth since the 356 days. Hell I was installing 10K engines in 914s 20 years ago when the car wasn't worth 2500 bucks!

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I have thought more than once about dropping an LS into the 996 and selling the Porsche engine to offset some of the cost...mmm....

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Just bought a good core engine from someone yesterday who had installed an LS engine. He's having all sorts of weird computer issues and the windows won't operate and after driving for 30 minutes the car electrically shuts down. Conversion complications are something we hear about all the time. Some people work through them, others give up.

Heh - those electrical problems remind me of the gray-market Jag we had when I was a kid. That car was insane...the driver window would come down if you used the cigarette lighter while the door was open, and it at fuses like candy, and those fuses with the element exposed were not cheap.

You just have to wrap those fuses in tin foil.. That solves ALL the problems!

Heh. I confess to using wood screws a time or two when fuses were scarce.

A quarter is also a perfect fit for those fuses. Burnt the dash harness on a Renault 5 because of it.

Ha! Gives new meaning to change-ing your fuses...

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This. I bought my car knowing I WILL have to do the bearing and may well have to buy a crate motor. I intend to keep this particular car for a long time. Others may have a different plan. Fine. Not for me to judge. Good luck, OP. TC

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Thats the right attitude!

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The previous owner of my old '88 Carrera had the motor rebuild in 2002 for $16k. You'd be lucky to get one rebuilt for that amount today.

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My '87 Carrera was smoking like a Mack truck by 2003 and I did a $6k valve job. As I remember, a full rebuild would have been about $12k but it could have been more (I didn't consider it since the bottom end was in good shape). Close enough to the prices mentioned here to be about equal. BTW I don't look at what a car is worth on the market in making these decisions. Under a purely market value framework, it seems that almost any non-warranty service should be avoided. What I compare against is a replacement cost, where replacement isn't just similar model, year, etc., but also a similar level of confidence that it doesn't have hidden problems that have already been exposed/eliminated in the current one. This rebuild (repair) largely eliminates the single biggest hidden problem in this model. The question I ask myself is given what I have, what's my best strategy for minimizing total cost of ownership for the next 10-15 years (and, for these cars, maximizing enjoyment as well)? The longer I own the car, the more I know about it, and the bigger the difference between market value and value to me. I would expect that the guy who bought my '87 should be driving it happily for 50k-100k miles without major issue ( http://blue-carrera.com ). That car sold in one week with two bidders near asking price and after a dealership PPI.

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You're making the right call. These cars are worth it.

We can all talk about it for many pages more and analyze it to death but what's done is done. OP took action based on his criteria's and comfort level and we all know it's in good hands now. OP please update us on what is ultimately diagnosed. We are all wishing you the best outcome based on circumstances.

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I am probably #30 of 30 in the queue. I'll be picking my car up in December of this year. My future engine work with Jake is more than the price of the car. I only did this because I always wanted a 911 and can't afford a 996 GT3 nor a newer 911. Not that the 996 is a "consolation prize." I see it as an opportunity into the 911 world.

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Nope, there's two behind you :-)

" ... Not that the 996 is a "consolation prize." I see it as an opportunity into the 911 world." Well said and to the point for my situation. Fingers crossed for what Jake finds out about your engine. Hopefully, we will hear of those lessons learned in the coming months.

Going to Georgia.... 01efbe814f4d7f74c1eb5d0746d5701cae10f7aede.jpg

We'll see it in a few days!

My future engine work with Jake is more than the price of the car. I only did this because I always wanted a 911 and can't afford a 996 GT3 nor a newer 911. Not that the 996 is a "consolation prize." I see it as an opportunity into the 911 world.[/QUOTE] Some would say a 996 with a rebuilt, more powerfull engine is the perfect everyday driver between standard & GT3.

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Some would say a 996 with a rebuilt, more powerfull engine is the perfect everyday driver between standard & GT3.[/QUOTE] '03s are going for $25k to $30k. Throw in a JR 3.8 ($20k my guess??) will put you at 45k-50k, which is '01 TT or '09 IMS-less C2 territory. Any comparison between those?

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This is my thinking as well. Once Jake does the diagnosis, I'll be looking for the most cost effective way to get at least 100k more miles out of this car, including maybe about 1000 miles of DE/track without further modification or prep. This is my DD and I take it everywhere, and want the confidence that I can hop in any day and go on a 1 or 1000 mile trip. Like my '87 :-). If I had known ahead of time that my engine was going to develop this problem, I certainly would have taken a different path. Maybe an older TT, or as Ahsai says an IMS-less engine, but these have certain reliability issues as well or are too new to know. As mentioned before, it's water under the bridge, and you do the best you can to play the hand you're dealt. Jake's experience with failure mechanisms and their solutions is maybe an even better path for overall longevity. That we'll need to discuss in some detail once he gets the engine apart.

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'03s are going for $25k to $30k. Throw in a JR 3.8 ($20k my guess??) will put you at 45k-50k, which is '01 TT or '09 IMS-less C2 territory. Any comparison between those?[/QUOTE] I was refering to current 996 owners in need of a major service & wanting more compromise free power. I prefer the 996 looks inside & out, & AWD is a deal killer not to mention higher maintenence cost & depreciation.

Agreed. One of the good things with this route is one can choose to do a cost effective way to bring the engine up to spec, or do an all out 3.8, or anything in between. Sounds like lots of choices and flexibility depending on how much one is willing to spend.

My schedule is now booked for exactly one solid year for a complete engine reconstruction. Of those cars that are in the queue only 3 of them are being done electively and the rest are reactive, following some form of failure. Of all those cars only 6 of them have a current value that exceeds the cost of the engine thats being fitted to the car, and a couple of those will be very close to the cost of the engine for the value of the car. Like I have said over and over again, if you are concerned with what the car is worth, Vs what the engine will cost, don't even bother inquiring with us. This concept and mindset isn't new with Porsches and Porsche engines. We were building 356, 912 and 914 engines that were cost more than the car was worth 20 years ago. Today, we still do that on the aircooled side here. If you think an "expensive" M96 engine cost a lot, just wait till you see how much a cheap one costs you. We'll help mklein9 make the best decision based on what we find. With such low mileage my primary objective is finding the source of the issue and applying the least invasive process possible to rectify it. I'd much rather NOT disassemble the entire engine. I have a good idea of whats going on within the confines of that engine.

mklein9's 996 arrived today from California. I think considering the weather that it arrived very quickly. All is well, we'll begin diagnosis in the coming week, so we can gather a plan about the best course of action.

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subscribed. 2003 Carrera 4S Speed Yellow / 1955 356 Continental 1500 Rust Red

Got a chance to carry out an evaluation today. Here are just a few pics. Mike had the oil changed only 500 miles before the car was shipped here. The material found in the bottom of the oil filter housing showed heavy copper material from main bearings, so we are going to have to go inside to see how bad it is. The good news is that collateral damages are expected to be limited, once we determine what started to wear first, which will obviously be pretty wasted. This is the most material I've ever seen on a mag drain lug in just 500 miles. It was doing its job well, because there was little metal in the sump (all on the magnet) and the filter lacked any small material, too. The only metal we found in the filter housing was non-ferrous, and heavy copper. Here's the drain plug, thats 5X more than should be present even in a 5K mile service interval. This much in 500 miles is extreme. The picture doesn't do it justice, it's literally 1/4" deep atop the magnet and even more around the crown.

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Is that copper on the drain plug? I didn't think copper stuck to magnets.

No. That's all steel shards. The oil filter pic file is corrupted, will post it later.

I’ve been lurking here for a while as well as a few other Porsche forums. These threads make considering a 996-911 purchase really challenging. I’ll be in the fun car market in a few months. If I do buy a fun car in the near future I’m planning on keeping it until my kids put me in a nursing home. The idea of buying a car with 30 k miles with a glass engine is unsettling. The high cost of replacement is disturbing as well as knowing it could fail dramatically at any moment. How do Porsche owners get any sleep? It almost sounds like the best approach to 996-911 ownership is to buy a high mileage 996 drive it until the motor shatters, send it to Jake, wait a year then voila, a fun reliable sports car. But, if a car made it 150 k miles maybe that car will make it to 300 k without dramatic intervention. If you buy a car with 30 k to 60 k miles there might only 2 miles left in it but the entry cost is let’s say $10,000 over the one with 150 k miles. The additional $10,000 entry cost is wasted on an unreliable motor, it would be more cost effective to spend that money on a robust rebuild (remanufactured) engine. But a car with higher miles is going to have other problems, it’s going to need some love and $ over and above glass engine replacement.

Or buy the host "broken" and get a good deal. A company we work closely with has 1/2 dozen 996s at the present as well as a couple of Caymans that are great hosts and are 3 miles from our faulty, ready to be Rabyized! This way no extra money is wasted buying a car that runs fine.

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there may be a small risk, and there are many opinions. Buy a higher mile car and spend several thousand on maintenance including the DOF or IMSB retrofit after a while, or buy a low mileage car and do the DOF or IMSB retrofit immediately, factor it into the sale price. In the end you spend the same amount on maintenance, you are just out the extra cash up front for the lower mile car. In my mind, usual car pricing strategy does not apply to this model. Buying a high mile 996 as I did, in fact, I sleep quite well; it's a car, not a family member. Jake is in the business to rebuild these things. Perhaps the best known in the country? He has a hot line. Guess what he sees and hears all day? But how many tens of thousands more are out there purring along just fine? 2003 Carrera 4S Speed Yellow / 1955 356 Continental 1500 Rust Red

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Pretty much every 911 has had engine issues leading to known catastrophic failures. Some designs have been better than others, but I believe that to go back to a really solid engine you'd have to go pre-water cooled to either the 993 or the 80s 3.2. I came from an '87 3.2 to this '02. The '87 had its problems, but they could be ignored until it failed smog, and there was little chance of catastrophic failure. However, the progress made in handling, power, comfort, and overall usability as a daily driver in those 15 years is nothing short of amazing. When I drove my '87 while getting it ready for sale after I'd had this '02 for a month, it felt like an underpowered VW bug in comparison; the A/C doesn't do anything useful, the ride is rough, the G50 transmission has long throws, the trunk is tiny... It's a tradeoff. There is an entire range of cars from '98 - '11+ that has its weaknesses, and how to manage that is going to be a unique solution for each owner and car. It is unrealistic for someone interested in these cars to simply write off 13 years' worth of production and, IMHO, very impressive improvements in the chassis and other non-engine components. It takes probably 5-7 years (warranty period plus a couple of years) before the issues with any model year starts emerging in large enough numbers to be statistically significant to let a used buyer make informed decisions. From this point of view, the 996 and early 997 are good candidates -- known strengths and weaknesses, a reasonable community of expertise, and an established market for improvements. In any case, extremely careful and thorough oil system analysis seems paramount for these cars. Preventative IMSB replacement (for M96), a mag drain plug, and a spin-on oil filter (without the bypass valve) seem necessary at minimum. Extra oil sump capacity and cooling for hard use might be necessary. Maybe requiring cars that were regularly driven is important for maintaining oil films between bearing surfaces; mine was stored in Minnesota during the winters but oil changed every year (2.5k miles); maybe that wasn't good enough as Jake has found evidence of crank or rod bearing wear. More detail coming soon as the engine comes apart. A possible alternate candidate is a Turbo, though, with the Mezger engine design, although the 4 wheel drive and higher complexity and maintenance costs brings its own set of issues. I think, after letting this settle and hearing what others have had to say, is that the base factory engine has very significant weaknesses and the new owner must consider that $10k - $20k might be in the cards for them no matter the outcome of a PPI or whether the engine has 10k or 100k miles on it. But, the handling, comfort, and overall usability of these cars is simply fabulous. The engine seems to be the big, obvious weak point, and there are ways of dealing with that.

Mike, That post was all I needed to understand that we are working together for a reason. You "get it", and we'll have an excellent working relationship moving forward. Engine comes out next week. Maybe :-)

Mike, your Carrera was prone to snapping head studs and premature valve guide failure. Neither are fatal, but both are expensive. Great cars, but the 996 is in another league, especially as a daily driver. If you own a Porsche, repairs of $10-$20k are ALWAYS in the cards.

For anyone still following along, Jake's shop has disassembled the engine and done most of the diagnosis work. There is still some work before a full diagnosis and repair proposals can be done, but here's some preliminary info. Hopefully Jake can add details at his leisure. The most likely root causes were two-fold. First, the initial IMS bearing had started failing and was replaced at 28k without identifying or diagnosing any other issues (not to mention that the same shop did an RMS replacement and the new seal was falling out). Second, the oil filter bypass valve's spring was far too weak and it appears that the filter was being bypassed a lot, not just under rare cases. As a result, initial debris from the failing IMS bearing quickly made its way to the main and rod bearings which showed highly advanced wear. The image below is one I took of one drop of my oil 500 miles after the oil change that showed metal in the filter; by its color it must have come from the main or rod bearings and Jake's photos bear this out. Just the fact that one drop contained a particle is pretty crazy. Metal particles are everywhere the oil is; Jake says it looks like somebody poured glitter into the oil. It's amazing there was no grenading yet. The new LNE IMS bearing with 12k on it was near failure, as were at least some of the main and rod bearings. Catastrophic failure would likely have happened within 1-2k miles if that. On the positive side, the rest of the engine looks great and damage is contained. As I mentioned above, there's still some diagnostic work to do but this appears to be the general outline. flake-small.jpg

Uh Mike, are you sure it's the right image you intended to post? I see a pink segment with pink "1 mm" caption.

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That's right, see above the pink line for the particle!

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What brand filter should we now be avoiding?

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Not filter, filter housing which has the bypass valve. That's a Porsche standard part. I'm going to replace it with the LNE bypass adapter and spin-on filter with both mine (996, 987). That the failure of a $2 part (the spring, not the housing it's in) causes 10,000 times that in damage is mind boggling.

Can the spring force be measured and compared to that of a new filter housing spring? 2003 Carrera 4S Speed Yellow / 1955 356 Continental 1500 Rust Red

Is that picture of a slide under a microscope?

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Thanks -- I did the LNE adapter a while back and hoped I did not stock up on the wrong filters.

Oh boy, here we go again. The spin on oil filters are gonna be the next fear monger tactic since most that feed into the IMS hysteria have already done them.

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Yes it is.

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Yes, but a jig that must be made up to facilitate the work is required. The OEM filter housing is cheap to replace (which is the root of the problem) and we often replace them during our IMSR procedures should they fail the test or even be close. With this instance we are even closer to mandating that the LN Spin On oil filter adaptor be employed with all IMS retrofits. Lots can be learned from the issues that we experience at our level. That's why I instruct my classes and fill them with this empirical data. Mike will be back on the road in less than 6 weeks because his cylinders measured within spec and the remainder of the engine passed my tests for being repairable without the need for reconstruction. That saves a slot for someone who needs it as well as gets his car completed a year early:-) It's not fear monger tactics, it's the fact if the matter. If someone or a group of people don't understand how the OEM filter housing and bypass works that's only their own fault. If someone can't understand that time in service and being exposed to hot engine oil with thousands of thermal cycles can't impact the integrity of a lightweight spring, that's also their own fault. Mike and his wallet do understand this. Thank goodness he did the right thing and stopped driving it, because of his actions we can repair it with thousands of dollars saved, at near 1/2 price of the worst case scenario.

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Right. Like I had to say on another thread recently: real data has a way of puncturing preconceived ideas.

I have a question: isn't the bypass valve here for a reason in the first place? (really just asking)

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Of course it is.. BUT the bypass in these engine is a horrible design. Most other engines route bypass oil back to the sump, not diverting it around the filter. The issue is the engine creating the wear debris in the first place.. If it didn't do that, then the bypass failure would be no big deal at all. The bypass is there to keep the OE filter cartridge from collapsing, better filters have a stronger filter media. I have another product in final testing that allows a bypass and routes oil back to the sump- the way it should have been.

Filter bypassing isn't uncommon. We use them in the oil and fuel systems on aircraft. The theory is that it is better to circulate some fluid (oil or fuel) than to starve the component entirely. Obviously, circulating unfiltered (bypassed) oil in a jet engine is risky, but less risky than oil starvation due to filter clog. Same is true for fuel. I'm unconvinced that filter bypassing is necessary in automotive applications. To that end, I have the LN spin-on kit.

I'm kind of new to oil filter discussion, and spin-on adapter etc. Sure it's my fault because I don't know what I don't know. So if someone can please explain how it works? Or a link to the explanation? Now to spin-on adapter and the oil filer I would need, I can't find anything here for M96. http://lnengineering.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=m96

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http://lnengineering.com/products/ot...ayman-911.html Filter is mentioned elsewhere (I forget where), I ordered Napa Gold 1042 from Amazon, $8 each.

Question is not of understanding but whether the chances of something happening outweigh the costs from a manufacturing point(also called over engineering). I mean do you really think if Porsche thought the filter bypass was really bad that they wouldn't have already updated it in their designs? 179K 996's out there and even if you can get 25% of those 179k people to update their oil filter housing, that's quite a bit of dough. A good opportunity to offset or supplement the IMS retrofit sales. Alright I know where this is gonna lead...

Another "must have" fix for our doomed 996! Sorry, but I dont think Porsche engineers are as dumb as people make out

Yep. I find the spin-on a little cleaner to deal with. That it doesn't bypass is an ancillary bonus to me.

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Hah thanks. I misread MY97 as M97. Doh! The oil filter then just screws into the adapter? I suppose would be directly exposed to the road surface and elements? I know Porsche's own is just a plastic container.

CHEEZUS CHREIST!!! (sic) Just when I thought it safe to come back to Rennlist, this type of hysteria is up again. I'm a trained manufacturing and mechanical engineer. Oil filters on most high performance engines have bypass valves because unfiltered OIL is better than not enough oil from a clogged filter. That's why our car has bypass valves. Believe it or not, 99% of all M96 owners WHO NEVER VISIT RENNLIST or who have NEVER HEARD of Jake Raby or LN Engineering have owned and run M96 and M97.1 cars for YEARS without all these aftermarket 'improvement' parts. They follow factory maintenance schedules on factory spec oil and do PERFECTLY FINE. And you know what else? the factory oil filter mechanism of removable cartridge filters - standard on almost every other German car I've EVER seen, has the benefit of reduced environmental impact because dirty oil filled spin filters end up in land fills and leaching into the ground. Now, we, by nature being on an enthusiast site will be a little more OCD over our cars than the general population, and those people with problems will naturally come to the Internet to seek out answers / solace. If it satisfies your OCD nature and you are 100% sure your oil filter will NEVER impede the proper flow of oil to the engine, and you are 100% sure you are going to change the oil every 5K miles, sure - go ahead get the LNE spin on oil filter adapter that eliminates bypass valve if it helps you sleep better at night. BUT, I totally reject this nonsense and hysteria that if you don't buy their $140 kit that your engine is going to grenade.

Agreed^

+1

Wait a munite! If the bypass puts the oil back in the sump and not divert it around the filter, doesn't then the engine will be starving of oil and destroy itself? What am I missing here?

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Couldn't have said it better myself and you've done a+ job on transferring thoughts into writing. I often find these days that Rennlist is often about "Analysis Paralysis" type mentality.

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Nobody is making Porsche engineers out to be dumb. We have no idea who decided to put in a cheap bypass valve that bypasses the filter, nor who decided to use a lawnmower bearing for the intermediate shaft. Those decisions were probably made somewhere along the line when transferring the engineering prototype to production. Costs have to be saved -- where would we all be if Porsche had in fact gone under in the mid-90s due to insufficient focus on costs? If everything in the car were bulletproof, or exactly as the engineering prototypes were, we'd probably be paying double for the cars. Some of these cost reduction decisions are perfectly fine and some have proven not to be. We don't know the internal politics that resulted in each decision. I'm not going to judge because I have no basis to. It is what it is and we manage the risks we know about, unfortunately sometimes expensively.

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Ummm.....what he said.

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To paraphrase: "I can make up statistics better and faster than you can!" (Ref: http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728 http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728 Why the statement of facts from the results of my engine's analysis provokes such hysteria is beyond me.

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LOL, good to hear a differing opinion. So I'm OCD by nature, I replace the oil every 12 months which will always be under 5,000 miles, however how do I know that the oil filter will NEVER impede proper oil flow?

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I can certainly understand your position as you must be one of the 39 members on this forum that has actually experienced an IMS failure. Now the other 175,223 owners, I'm not sure on where they stand on this.

The way to keep a reality / sanity check - go visit your local Porsche dealer once in a while. And you will see on Monday or Wed mornings, a line of M96 and M97 cars in for routine maintenance / service, and other repairs - these owners - even when out of warranty, continue to take their cars in on scheduled service intervals. Then go talk to these owners while they're waiting for their Cayman or Cayenne loaner or just enjoying the free coffee - and they've NEVER heard of Rennlist, NEVER heard of LNE, Never heard of IMS, Never heard of Motul - they live blissful lives ignorant of Internet driven hysteria. I go twice a year to the P car dealership for track preparation and tech inspection for DE event sign off, and brake fluid changes after DE season, and stuff that I can't wrench on my own.

There can't be a scenario where bypassed oil is returned to the sump, only to be picked up again, bypassed, and returned to the sump. It has to continue to the oil cooler, and then to the rest of the internals as if it were normal operations...except the oil wasn't filtered. To wit: https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...t-diagram.html Had to be a typo...

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Hang on!! You mean you get free coffee at your dealer? I get to stand in a dingy shed being ignored by everyone. Luckily I didn't spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on my car so I didn't feel cheated.

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I know that but Jake wrote he is working on a project that that will bypass the oil into the sump "like most engines do". This didn't make any sense to me but wanted to be polite today so figured I'll ask if I was missing anything.

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The spin-on filters also have a bypass feature, I believe, but it is internal to the filter, not separate as with the OEM setup. This sound correct?

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I know...I understood your post. lol

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Based on the link provided in a prior post, both bypass designs leak (relieve) oil between the pump and filter to reduce the differential pressure seen by the filter. The "usual" approach has the relief path back into the sump, essentially a short circuit around the pump. All oil is still filtered. The Porsche design short circuits the filter, delivering unfiltered oil at high pressure to the internal bearings. If I'm reading this correctly, this is clearly an important difference. Both achieve a reduction of differential pressure at the filter, but Porsche's design introduces debris-laden oil into the engine. The upside of Porsche's design is that oil is delivered into the engine even if highly viscous. Is this a good tradeoff? Nobody here without direct, applicable data can answer that authoritatively.

So in the end, the original title of this thread, "Shavings from old failed IMS (??) now showing up?", may actually have been correct. Old shavings remained in the engine after the original IMSB was replaced at 28k and were circulated through the oil filter bypass. By 41k when the engine was torn down, due to ineffective filtering the particles had precipitated wear in the new IMSB's steel races, the main and rod bearings, lifters, etc. Given the ineffective filtering the damage was progressing rapidly. No other sources of wear were found in engine teardown. New IMSB and rod and main bearings were on the verge of failure; lifters wearing rapidly as well. What could have prevented this? 1) Thorough cleanout of all metal debris from the old IMSB (or, preferably, having replaced IMSB before any damage). I.e. following LNE's procedures and not just throwing a bearing in. Given enough debris, this may or may not have been possible. 2) Full flow filter or regular checking and replacement of the oil filter housing ($30) in addition to the OEM filter Like some in this thread, I was initially skeptical that Jake/Charles were correct in their preliminary comments because of the often-mentioned sample bias they're working under as well as what their business is. In the end, they were spot on.

All I know is that this thread cost me $9000.

After reading threads like these, its no reason that 996's keep dropping in value. And by the way, 99% of buyers find their used cars online. They will also find rennlist on the first page of Google, and read all about its fantastic engine. No bueno..

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That's seriously bad. Care to expand? Between the two of us then we might be about even.

Thats all that matters. This thread is a perfect chronological illustration of what occurs when procedures are carried out without any sense of awareness about after effects. This is because people carrying these things out do not understand the dynamics of the engine, how it works, or how the sub-systems operate. Here's Mike's Rear Main Seal (RMS). This is exactly as it was when the engine was pulled from the car and I was standing there when the flywheel was pulled off. I literally used my fingers to remove this seal from the crankcase bore, the only thing keeping it in the engine was the constant vacuum from the AOS. If it would have gone to the track and saw one heavy, high RPM deceleration it would have been ejected from the crankcase. We'll be going back together with it in a couple of weeks. The good news is the crankshaft passed magna flux and we caught two valve seats in the heads that were loose before they gave him a really nasty experience.

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The people you see are, by definition, the people who currently own running cars. That's a heck of a selection bias. There is no question that a large number of engines live perfectly fine lives for many miles. But because most of us have woefully inadequate training in statistics, we fail to make appropriate conclusions given incomplete or biased data.

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The data isn't always biased. Its the interpretation of the data that is the issue. And therefore, the conclusions. You experienced a major issue with your 996 engine. Jake works on broken engines all the time. Your perceptions are skewed. If 5.2% of all 996's fail (totally made that up of course since no one knows for sure), then some people would "reason" that this is a low number...nothing to worry about. Others would say "holy crap!!!" and take drastic measures to protect their car and finances. That is why these threads bring out such diverse opinions. As previously stated, most 996 owners are blissfully unaware of the any issues, or of Rennlist, or of Flat 6 Innovations, etc. Good for them. In AZ, when someone sees a snake, it is always a rattlesnake. . As for statistics relating to failure, when a 996 engine fails, I would venture that the quick diagnosis is always the IMS, either due to a lack of knowledge or greed by the dealer/Indy. After all, as Jake often mentions, there are many, many more modes of failures than the IMS. Bottom line. There are no statistics on 996 engine failure (other than the extremely scientific poll at the top of our forum ) So, IMHO, the "bias" is built on not only misinformation but a lack of information. Also, there really is not reliable failure data. Couple that with personal experience/tolerance and at the end of the day you do what you feel you need to do for your car, your wallet and your piece of mind. After all, that's all that really matters.

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GOLD

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Um, y.e.s. we do... It was '****** Boy' (aka Wendelin Wiedeking) whom is now in the pizza business and is also awaiting a German court decision.

Like I've said over and over again.... We are certainly biased. We don't see the cars that are healthy and we turn down regular types of service and maintenance because our facility is filled with "less than favorable issues" or "complete losses". Quote honestly we don't care about doing the work that any other shop can do, and we send cars away all the time that can be repaired or serviced at a normal shop level. We are accustom to chunks of metal coming out with the oil when its drained and thats the type of oil service that we appreciate. I've never cared about doing normal work with cars or engines, if its not a challenge, or a mystery, its too boring to be here. We specialize in resurrections and reconstructions along with performance, thats the fun stuff.

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Jake, thank you for that. I think this is what so many of us were hoping to have you say at some point! 2003 Carrera 4S Speed Yellow / 1955 356 Continental 1500 Rust Red

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I've said it dozens of times here.

This whole scenario is fairly easy to explain. I'll use my job as an example. I'm an airline pilot. I fly 1000 hours a year, which is essentially 40,000 miles per year. Generally uneventful. (Like most 996 ownerships) Rare as it may be, when an airliner crashes, it's a big deal...call it catastrophic. (like a M96 grenading) I have friends who are NTSB crash investigators...they only get called to duty under horrible circumstances. Their job is to determine what went wrong. That's all they do...evaluate disasters. (Like Raby) So, when I talk to my NTSB friends, they all talk about disasterous things...since that's all they see. (Like Raby) The only real difference for me is my NTSB friends don't habitually show me their pictures of crash sites. (unlike Raby)

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^^like

Crash investigators do share their findings of the cause of the crash illustrated with appropriate images, because that is their obligation, and people want to know. (Like Raby) NTSB investigators do not habitually post crash site images unless required for the post-crash investigation report, because often there is lost of life, posting frivolous crash site images would cross the line of professionalism.

NTSB makes recommendations....737's grounded (Alaskan jackscrew) 777's grounded (fuel icing B.A.) and so on... Jake Raby makes recommendations......nothing Hmmm, who was behind the 991 GT3 stop sale???

NTSB is a governing body -- Jake is a business man 1 regulates -- 1 markets for $

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Exactly , I thought the distinction was pretty obvious, my response was going to be longer, but the above will do. But I do want to add that both must have the passion in their "business", else they couldn't do what they do. As for the GT-3 stop sale, it's got to be due to bad publicity of a brand new top sports car model of a prestigious sports car marque, I'm sure the corporate lawyers (and likely marketing folks too) in Stuttgart HQ were panicking with potential repercussion if someone were killed in a fiery incident, especially so soon after Paul Walker's death in the CGT!

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I don't know of any 996 owner that is blissfully unaware of their cars problems. The lower values of the 996s are directly related to the problematic engines.

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I know at least one Boxter S owner that know nothing about it and has no plans to find out or even care about it.

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He doesn't look up his own car, hard to believe..

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Not hard to believe at all. In my area, Porsches of all makes and models are a dime a dozen. My next door neighbor has a 2004 C4S. He never heard of an IMS. I was kind--and did not go into it with him. I can add that in my personal experience, this is more often the case. Not everyone has the time, energy, or commitment to obsess about their cars like us Rennlisters do!

At a party last year and a 65 year old lady pulled up in a beat up blue 996 cab 6 speed she bought new. I assume she never tracked it, assume she never drove aggressively, and after talking with her she never even heard of any web forums or IMS issues. Said she never had a problem with the car.

Same in the UK - I think we are all guilty of thinking everyone who drives a 911 is a petrol-head. I have three customers - 2 with 991 and 1 with 997, none of them even know what size of engine they have, power output etc. All male. One female customer with older boxter puts me to shame on her technical knowledge - keeps asking me if my 996 40th AE IMS has disintegrated yet and when I have it booked in for next boroscope.

The original owner whom I bought the car from is a software encryption guru, lives in a modest house, bought the car as his 50th birthday present to himself, paid $130K for the car since Canadian dollar was quite week back then. As a software guru, he was not any forums and was completely unaware of the IMSB, just took the car in P-car dealership for service, that's it. Us on Rennlist are a different hardcore group, no doubt about it!

Today I installed the LNE oil adapter and a Napa Gold 1042 full-flow filter on my wife's '05 Boxster (M97 IMSB). The car has 57k miles, and 4977 miles on the oil and filter. Of course, as the OP of this thread the heightened awareness of the issues prepared me for the worst and I looked very carefully at the oil, the filter housing, the filter.... Nothing. Zip. Utterly clean filter, oil, bottom of the housing. No sparkles, no glitter, just a some small black plastic chunks in the filter. Sending the oil to Blackstone anyway and will look at it under the microscope at work. Still to come is a full oil change in the next couple of weeks along with inspection of the mag drain plug installed at the last oil change and opinions on the black plastic. We are the 5th owner of this car, all in CA coastal regions. I would bet few of the previous owners knew or cared one whit about IMS bearings or how to detect and head off wear issues. But we bought this car after a PPI by a seriously OCD mechanic who declared the oil and filter "immaculate" and I was able to sketch together that it was driven regularly and owners did regular oil changes below factory recommended intervals, maybe 7k on average. Maybe this is how most of these engines go through life. It could be. None of us know. OTOH one of the POs may have known something about IMS bearings, or learned about it one of the hard ways. '05 was the transition year for 987s between the M96 and M97 bearings. This was an April build date, so kind of later-ish in the year. This PO had a shop replace the leaking RMS and paid $400 in labor to get the IMSB flange off, but did not replace the bearing. A call to the shop indicated the only reason for that sequence of events is that the bearing was found to be the M97 style. At the same time the clutch was replaced. Soon afterwards this PO apparently got disgusted with the maintenance costs of this thing and sold it. So, somebody else paid for a bunch of big repairs, confirmed the M97 IMSB, and we got it for a depressed price. Not only that but my PPI showed a leaking water pump the last PO was not aware of, so we split the cost of replacement. To me this seems like a nearly-ideal way to go about obtaining one of these. There's still risk, but lower, and price was really good.

Update: Car is back from Flat 6. There were some weird issues that developed on the truck trip back that were solved by replacing the alternator (twice, first replacement was bad), and the crankshaft position sensor (the one installed by Flat 6 went bad soon after delivery and they shipped a replacement overnight). Bottom line: the engine is great again, and better than before. It is smoother, quieter, and a bit more powerful in the upper-mid range RPMs due to improved intake valve seats and a slight compression increase which I asked for as an extra during the engine repair. Also has billet steel rods instead of the brittle stock rods, intended to be reliability enhancement for the occasional track/DE days. And higher grade timing chains, replaced water pump and thermostat, AOS, and various other normal or expected maintenance items. And a big change completely unexpected: the gas mileage is, seriously, about 20% higher. I am now getting 21 mpg on my normal weekly commuting instead of 17+. Hats off the Jake and the gang at Flat 6. I now have a significantly better engine with higher reliability parts. And saving gas costs!

Good luck with it Mike. At least you get to enjoy the summer with it. Hope you don't have any more problems. Dave 2002 Turbo - Basalt Black Metallic / 2003 Carrera 4S - Speed Yellow / 1955 356 Continental 1500 - Rust Red

Hi Mike, Good luck with it going forward. Bill

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I really wish that people would stop spewing this crap. The IMS bearings and the engine issues have far less to do with low 996 values than the fact that they were a major break from the traditional 911 - water-cooled, ugly headlights, and production numbers that eclipsed all 911's before them are why 996's have depreciated so much. Please stop believing this lie.

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I agree... And the 996 has not depreciated percentage wise any more than any other European sports car of the era.. Look at the values of BMWs and other cars to see this clearly. The Cayenne doesn't have engine issues and today you can buy a Turbo for less than most 996 Carreras.. The Porsches that are worth more everyday, rather than less are the non radiator laden versions. I just traded for an SC yesterday, you can't ever have enough Aircooled 911s.

Sorry if I missed it somewhere in the thread but what's the cost of the screw on filter mod Jake and can it be done by your average mechanic? I've done this mod on my Jaguar XKE (which does eject ecess oil into the sump) and it was quite simple........same for your mod to the 996 motor? Les.....who's beginning to wish he'd driven the car to Jake rather than having the Porsche dealer fit the LN IMS bearing.....:-)

The LN Spin On Filter Adaptor is an easy DIY install, prices can be found at www.lnengineering.com . This was the first product that we released with LN. Hindsight is 20/20... Dealers were the last group to start doing IMSR procedures. They only started doing these because of requests of owners. Recently one of the largest dealers in the US shipped us an engine after a post- process debacle that ended with parts ejecting from the engine at initial start up.... Seems they left an extra part in there somewhere that was caught between the IMS drive chain and the crankcase. That one was real interesting, and guess what? Its not their fault!

Maybe I missed it given the length of the thread, but if the root cause is metal filings from the original, failed IMS, then why was there no evidence in the oil filters during the first two oil changes?

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good question, the assumption is that they were dislodged during a recent track day.

Really wonderful thread, solid information and explanations. My thanks to everyone for all their time contributing to it. My take away for all this is that Excellence is no promise of Perfect. It is a car made by people, no more or less. So what does a 72 year old guy living on social security and a small pension do with his newly acquired 03 996? The best thing I can do...enjoy the car every day. I bought this to be my daily driver for at least ten...with luck twenty or so years. I paid a fair price based on what a really nice piece of metal it is. Uniquely nice. Looking at the 911 history I really can't think of another car like it. As for the mechanical issues in this thread, my aftermarket warranty/service contract gives me peace of mind for the next few years, but if I have to buy a whole new engine at some future date, I've already put that money aside because this isn't about what the car is worth on the market, but rather what it is worth to me and the pleasure I get driving it.

^There's some perspective for ya^

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We will never know the sequence of events with certainty. However, here would be my guess. Due to the car spending its first 11 years in Minnesota, packed away for the winter 6 months at a time, some initial bearing damage occurred. PO drove it 2.5k/year and changed oil every year. The details of what, where, and how the initial damage started are never going to be known. Since PO did his own oil changes, it is not clear if he inspected the filter carefully enough to find a problem earlier. At my PPI at 28k, metal fragments were found in the filter. IMSB was replaced (as was RMS). However, as Jake has made very clear, and as shown on the LNE web site, the process of flushing metal out of an engine is time intensive and expensive, and there is a valid question as to whether it can be done at all. In any case, none of those steps were done. (The shop was so incompetent that their RMS replacement was falling out 12k later, BTW.) So, being naive about this issue, I take possession of an engine with unknown levels, types, and sizes of metal bits floating around in the oil. The normal Porsche filter housing has a bypass valve that allows unfiltered oil to be pushed into the engine when cold (high viscosity). Jake's note on this was that my housing's valve was too lightly sprung, and the valve opened too easily. Thus metal-laden oil was constantly running. It seems pretty clear to me that damage would have occurred eventually, given these engine conditions. The track day likely accelerated it. By the time Jake got the engine, the IMSB was nearly failing, most of the main and rod bearings were worn to the internal copper layers, and it was pure luck the engine hadn't yet imploded. The wear of the rod and main bearings indicates that very fine metal particles were present, which are less likely to be caught by a filter inspection. The lesson is clear: inspect the filter and housing with extreme care, look for the tiniest metal particles. If there is any metal at all, whatsoever, in the filter or housing, either walk away or get a much deeper, more invasive, inspection and realize you are dealing with a $15 - $20k risk in short order. Install a no-bypass oil filter ("spin-on") on all your Porsches to avoid unfiltered oil. An oil analysis will not find anything wrong. I had Blackstone analyze the oil and they found nothing unusual, saying the engine is in great shape and the oil can be run a good number of miles further. Later, I told them it had nearly failed and was being rebuilt. They were completely surprised. They use spectrometer analysis to find the molecular components in the oil. Big chunks of metal are not detected. A bit over a year ago I was on the lookout for a 987 for my wife. There was a local one (about an hour away) that looked pretty good. I had a PPI done and the mechanic said I should come and look it over just to be sure. Glad I did, because there were no metal chunks anywhere but there was very fine glitter at the bottom of the housing. This is before I knew all the above. The car had other issues (undisclosed body work, very dirty oil) so I passed, but now I know I probably dodged another one of these bullets. The one we did buy had an immaculate filter as inspected by a very OCD mechanic. We are the fifth owners of that car and couldn't be happier with it. And it has the spin-on oil filter adapter. To simplify it down further: the engines are extremely expensive, frequently the full value of the car. If they show any significant metal in the oil beyond the (very low) normal wear levels, they will fail sooner than they should, maybe very soon -- not if, but when. Some owners will figure this out and unload the car before the evidence becomes obvious. Be educated, do the work, and be prepared to walk. On the other hand, if you have a solid engine, enjoy the car. To me the 996 is so far above the previous models I could never go back. It is a huge bargain at current prices.

That was an excellent post, Mike. 100% spot on, I can tell that you've sat in on one of my classes, and that you paid A LOT of attention to the material I shared. Oil filter housings are failing left and right, and creating all sorts of issues. I just turned in my 5th Patent application in the past two years on Monday, and this most recent one further addresses the issues related to the factory oil filter housing with another "fix". Generic UOA is very unimpressive, its all unicorns and rainbows to those guys, and I guarantee that no one there has ever built a Porsche engine. They don't know the materials that are used for the rod and main bearings with these engines, and their analyses are incorrect all the time. That said, only a particulate UOA will detect wear metals that are larger than 30 micron, about all a generic analysis is good for is to see the depletion of the anti- wear package, so one can better determine when a certain engine should have its service intervals set. That said, its not even good for that, because TBN and TAN are only evaluated if you pay more for the services. Its a big joke to me, we use ALS and Caterpillar only, and of course Lubrizol handles most of our UOA in exchange for assistance with Joe Gibbs Driven lubricant R&D. When I see one of those generic UOA, I just shake my head when reading their "comments" section, which is a complete joke! Everything is "normal", even if its failing, but the crazy thing is, with an M96 failure is normal, so I guess they aren't wrong after all.

Jake with all due respect to your knowledge and experience, your last comment seems rather jaded. From what you just said the people at Porsche are unethical idiots who can't do anything right, and the only fools bigger than them, are the fools like us who buy their cars. It sounds like you feel that we'd all be a lot wiser to just find a different car maker as fast as possible and trade in our 996s for whatever they'll give us for them. No offense but there are still a lot of 996s on the road with very happy owners.

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Snap!

I never said that, it may be what you perceived, but If I said you were right, we'd both be wrong. You must understand that ALL we see here are failures. We do not see cars for oil services, we don't see cars that need brakes; we only see cars that need engines, or need in depth repairs. If you live with death daily, and have added 19 failures to your failure log in the last 18 days, you'd also become biased. People are not happy when they call us, and when I ask how they are doing I hear "I could be better" about 4-5 times per week on average. Again, I never said that. if that happened we'd not have any more business. This is not the case as we have an 11 month backlog at the present and we have been operating at 150% for the past 8 years, having never had a backlog less than 6 months that entire time. People love 996s and even 986s enough to spend more on the engine than the entire car is worth, because they know that its impossible to buy a car that damn good today, for that small amount of money thats required to fit a Raby engine. The ONLY issue the cars have is their engines, its the one part where compromise was made to make way for high production numbers, automated assembly, just in time manufacturing, and profit. I am one of them, as I currently own a pair of 996s, and my wife currently holds 4 standing Land Speed Records that were attained with a very early 1999, 996. I bought one of the 996s for 1500 bucks with a blown engine and 74K miles on the clock, with a clean title and a 2 owner history. Hell, you can't even buy a rusted out 914 for 1500 bucks today. Dropped my 4.4L prototype V3 into it and after shredding the CV joints twice, I am finally enjoying it. I have to learn how to restrain my urge to turn the PSM off and roast the tires. Next will be the tranny, because now I have traction, and stronger CVs, so the next weak in the chain upstream is the gearbox. I can't wait to shoot a chunk of it through the side of the tranny case, thats an accomplishment. A guy like me has a ton of junk laying around, and failures are just part of playing the game, and you have to enjoy them. Failures are just opportunities, disguised as broken parts. I spent more for the pistons in that 4.4L engine than I spent on the entire vehicle purchase.

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John...meet Jake.

Hello Jake and thank your for your well worded reply. I think I misread and over responded to you as the result of being new here. As you say, you live surrounded by the death of engines and in that world it is hard to be optomistic. And I'm glad to hear you are having fun with your own Porsches. Thank you for all your replies and thoughtfulness.

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Thank you :-)

A small data point on my M96 engine failure at 90,000 miles. It had a new LN bearing fitted and the LN spin-on filter +magnetic drain plug just before I bought it. 10 days later and much less than 1000 miles it developed rod(#5) knock and damaged the rearmost main bearing. The 'best' local Porsche Indie was convinced the LN bearing had disintegrated -even though almost none of the debris was magnetic. This convinced me to handle the repair myself. The LN bearing and the original bearing that the P.O. gave me was perfect . The LN filter probably saved the engine because it caught so much debris. The engine internals were perfectly clean-even the lifters. I had the crankshaft repaired and all the usual replacement parts/machining. It is painful to incur the expense and inconvenience of a rebuild but without the LN filter ,I suspect the damage would have been terminal. So whatever the primary cause/source of debris may be,anything that reduces the collateral damage seems a good idea. There is lots of info here that is about collateral damage and symptoms & UOA. It is perhaps even more important to learn the primary cause of the ensuing problems. That lesson will (?) be given in Jake's much anticipated "M96 Definitive Guide". If the M96 engine rebuilder does not know all these primary causes ..........

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Great testimonial. Its not just the better filter, but the omission of the factory bypass that saves the engine in so many cases with the LN SPOFA. And to think, that product was a spin off from the IMS Solution development� Back when it was released, no one really knew what would come down the road :-)

It has been over a year since I started this thread and it is time for an update. With the Flat 6-repaired engine in it, I've put on a bit over 7,000 miles and it is solid as a rock, just had oil/filter changed again with zero issues. Oil filter on the last change was utterly free of any debris. The computer shows no faults whatsoever--every single section in the Durametric fault readout is green checked. I'm getting 10-15% better gas mileage than before the repair, and it feels and sounds just perfect. Thank you, Jake and company.

Glad to hear that its still doing well, and that we finally solved all the issues.

As the OP, here is one more update. It's been almost 2 years and 24k miles since I got the car back with repaired engine and IMS Solution and we sorted out the weird electrical issues. (Plug for DeoxIT D5S) The car has had... ZERO problems. None, absolutely none whatsoever. Not even a burnt out lightbulb. It runs beautifully without any hesitation or a single sound out of place. I try to drive it hard every day, at least for a block or two :-). 5 oil changes (DT-40, I've drunk the Kool-Aid) and I see no trace of any metal in the filter or on the mag drain plug.

To save you all getting our your de-ciphering gear here is the link: https://www.amazon.com/Hosa-D5S-6-De.../dp/B00006LVEU Wow ,that's new JGDT prolongs the life of bulbs also "-).

Thanks SchnellGelb, but I posted before checking the exact version of the stuff. This is what I used, and continue to use: https://www.amazon.com/DeoxIT�-DN5-S.../dp/B00529GE0O The "N" version is non-flammable, quick dry, safe for plastics. Explanation of the different versions is http://store.caig.com/s.nl/it.I/id.66/.f . The stuff is pure magic.

good to know the different versions.thanks

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Great to hear. Lots can be learned by tens of thousands of people, if they could just read all 15 pages of this thread. This thread substantiates so many of the things that we've been saying for years, but is often not truly listened to. Glad to see that we got it right!

I read this entire thread start to finish... Very impressed at the knowledge sharing going on here. The info contained here is like a microcosm of 10 other threads I read. The oil bypass designed in these engines seems like a horrible idea such that much more bad can come from that design vs. good... What was Porsche's rationale for incorporating that bypass again, was it cold start lubrication assistance? Anyway, after digesting it all, I immediately ordered myself the LN spin on oil filter adapter kit. Had porsche designed these engines with a more robust bearing and no bypass from the get-go, the content of the 996 forum would be vastly different, eh?

"Had Porsche designed these engines with a more robust bearing and no bypass from the get-go, the content of the 996 forum would be vastly different, eh? " It would be interesting to read a detailed description of how the various weaknesses of the M96 were addressed in the M97 & 9A! The best I can offer is this link: https://rennlist.com/how-tos/a/porsc...erences-383726 But I wish I could find a comparison of the M96 with the Subaru flat 6 .

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I've been giving this a lot of thought as I have an LN Spin-on filter adapter that I am planning to install on my car. I have the EPS Eternal (roller/cylindrical) bearing in my car with the direct oil feed which comes from punching the hole in the center cap of the IMS. My question is: Does using the Spin-on adapter (thus eliminating that bypass valve entirely) cause any restrictions on the oil feed for my particular style IMSB? I know the bearing also receives significant oil splash by virtue of its location, but I would hate to eliminate that flow of oil that reaches the bearing via the punched hole.

By punching a hole in the back of the oil pump, you create a controlled(??) leak of both volume and pressure. The question is how significant that volume and pressure loss is. That depends on the size of the hole you made. If your oil pump was already worn and producing less than full volume and pressure ,it could become a problem. Since this is such a clear issue and a legitimate concern, the vendor of the system will have all the data you need. Suggest you contact them and Post their response here for others to comment on. When this specific issue was raised here with that vendor in the past ,they gave a non-technical flip answer.They gve a similar response to a 'thrust' question about their bearing but quickly improved it.So I am optimistic they will help you.

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Be more concerned with the portion of the IMS assembly that was compromised (punching a hole inside it) loosening and falling into the shaft, creating an internal loss of oil pressure. The LN Spin On Filter Adaptor was never developed to be utilized with a system like this, so I'd stay away from it. To be safe, only use components that are known to be compatible, developed by the same team, and proven. Never mix and match, unless you like problems that no one can help you with.

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Thanks to you and Schnell Gelb.... That's why I held off. I called EPS and when I spoke to their tech about this topic, he said their bearing doesn't really need the direct oil feed and that proximity oil spash already provides more than adequate lubrication. He said their DOF solution was more or less implemented as overkill to satisfy customers who felt they needed it.

I suggest a few other influences 1. There was already a competing DOF kit for a deep groove ball bearing IMSB 2. The Solution had an oil feed (yes,I know it is different!) 3. There was little field testing of the roller prior to sale so this was an 'insurance' against the risk of the roller overheating and an answer to the endless "is it load or lubrication?" question. 4. It cost very little(one punch!) and it was easier than the DOF kit in 1. above. 5.The 'splash' isn't quite like that but although it may have been adequate for a ball IMSB, there was no field data to proove it was adequate for a roller. Feel free to add more ! The end result has been indisputably good and I concede better than I expected (but ONLY after they added thrust control to the earlier design-after howls of protest about the original poor design.) Who knows how good it could be if they added Pedro's DOF to a roller IMSB ?? BTW you can do this(in theory) with some of the DOF kits because you can order them without a bearing and then source your own roller bearing(part # NUP204?). I am not advocating that -just for debate !

Curious. I have a boxster that had ims bearing replaced at around 60k with LN engineering bearing. It now has 112k. Should bearing be done again? If so, roller bearing a better option?

According to the LN site the answer is "Yes" and it is about time to check the clutch friction plate and DMF anyway Assuming manual g/b). If it is a Tip - I'll let others advize. Whatever, get a "while you are in there" list going so you are ready .

IMS retrofit is supposed to be good for 5 years or 75k miles.

Agreed ,if it was replaced less than 5 yrs ago.Thank you for the correction.

Thanks guys. If I keep the car, it's probably smart just to do it. Though it does get drive "appropriately!"

Couldn't you lock down the engine and open the cover and have a look?

Sorry to revive an old thread, an interesting story with a happy ending for the OP but nevertheless a debatable �cause�. Key points: The OP�s car had a failing IMSB with metal particles in the oil before he bought it. The IMSB was replaced at time of purchase and there was no debris in the oil filter until over 12,000 miles and three oil changes later. The sudden appearance of metallic debris was put down to residual debris from the original bearing having been lodged somewhere in the engine only to be �shaken loose� at a DE event many miles later. However, after a further 500 miles � and no further DE events � there was still debris being produced. At this point the OP (despite some apparent earlier scepticism) shipped his car to Raby. So how was original debris still appearing? According to Raby, �the most likely case is the original bearing failure process created material laden oil which has attacked the replacement bearing and is forcing its failure through greatly accelerated wear�. Really? So even though this debris was apparently not circulating at all for 12,000 miles? Still there after three oil changes? And then causing no damage to the engine apart from the new IMS bearing and rod bearings? It seems to me the more obvious cause of the new debris would not have been the original IMSB � replaced 12,000 miles previously � but the one now in the car. The current bearing would surely be many, many more times likely to be the source of newly-found steel debris in an engine than a bearing that is long gone. However, we don�t really know, because there was no independent inspection of the LNE bearing. We have to take Raby�s word for it. Why would I suggest a different cause to the one put forward in this thread? Because LNE bearings do suddenly fail due to manufacturing defects . My own Boxster S had such a bearing, and with exactly the same debris symptoms as the OP. On removal of the LNE bearing, I found one of the 18 ceramic ***** (it was a double row bearing) to be badly pitted with surface cracks. This one faulty ball was steadily eroding the steel bearing races, and was the sole cause of all debris. I replaced the IMSB with a standard SKF all-steel double row bearing at a fraction of the cost of a hybrid one. 6,000 miles later, no debris in the (standard) filter, on the magnetic sump plug, or in the sump� Thought it worthwhile opening this thread again, given someone with the same symptoms might find the thread and not look to at least one obvious cause.

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Ahhhh, the old "IMSB conspiracy theory"... Worthwhile to open this thread again? To what end? Did you have an independant inspection of the/your LNE bearing? Or, should we just take your word for it? Let's see if you post the results when your "standard SKF all-steel double row bearing" fails.

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That question was answered many times throughout the thread. The original OEM bearing WAS already in failure mode and WAS shedding metal into the engine, but the shop installed a new bearing in spite of the evidence found in the PPI. The shop should have NEVER installed a new LN bearing into a failing engine, but because shops don't care if the product fails or not, they installed it anyway. This car would have never passed pre-qualification from a certified installer. It could have had double that amount of oil changes and it still doesn't change the fact that the original OEM bearing was already failing and polluted the engine with damaging metal contamination. This problem was like a plane quickly spiraling out of control that eventually will crash and burn. Fortunately, the OP made the wise decision to get Flat6 involved and have the motor reconstructed (as Raby calls it). Ugh! The engine was caught BEFORE further damage occurred. Had the OP ignored Raby's advice, his engine would have been turned into scrap metal. Why is that? Did you not read that the PPI was showing metal from the original OEM bearing? Did you not read that the shop installed a new bearing into a metal contaminated engine? Have you not read the hundreds of threads on the topic of why it's asinine to install a bearing in a engine that has been shedding metal? In spite of that evidence, you're concluding the new bearing must be the cause of the problem with the OP's engine. Really?! The LN bearing was damaged from the remaining metal contamination shed by the OEM bearing. Make sense? It's really not rocket science. I don't want to speak for Charles and LN, but aside from the IMS Solution, all other IMS retrofit products have a replacement interval. That doesn't mean it is a defective product! So enlighten us... 1. Did you have the LN Engineering bearing installed on your car? 2. How many miles on the bearing? 3. How did you determine without a shadow of doubt the metal laden oil was sourced from the LN bearing's races? Look forward to your reply.

For reference, this is what a certified shop would do before installing any LN retrofit product. You Tube

I read through the whole thread. One thing I�d like to point out is that tracking the car likely accelerated the already-present condition of debris in the engine from the original IMSB failure. Raby proves again that there�s a method to the madness. He�s the expert, proven. I�ve rebuilt engines in the past (non-Porsche). It�s absolutely essential to make 100% certain you don�t have any debris anywhere, anywhere, anywhere. It�s like a blood clot in your body that breaks loose. It�s not going to end well, or in the least, cause wear, but often a healthy excercise event can push the situation over the edge. Glad to hear the rebuild was running strong years later. Not surprised, though. Do things right, it works. BTW, it�s not all that bad to be paranoid. �Only the Paranoid Survive� is a book written by a founder of Intel corporation. Much better to be sensitive and open and proactive. But then after all that, just drive your car and whatever happens, happens. Raby is like my real estate attorney. Tells me ten ways this thing is going to blow up and why I shouldn�t move forward. Then I say �thank you for that information,� and I make my own decision on what to do next. And it�s not always what he recommends.

The LN critic in 233 above has 25 posts to measure his knowledge of the M96 IMSB issue. How does that compare to the combined experience,knowledge and judgement of LN and Flat Six. ? I am an engineer who worked in engine development for a car company. Frankly ,I am humbled by the knowledge and skill of Charles.Jake and Baz. Post 233 is smarter than all of them ? I have not bought anything from either company but through my own engine failure in similar circumstances to the OP, the LN+Flat 6 advice was flawless ,generous and unbelievably patient-even after I (foolishly)bought and fitted a competitors product . . I challenged some of their suggestions but did it in the context of - I'm just curious - why is that ? We all learned about the M96 with that approach. Post 233 above and others who piled on (in other Threads) is part of the reason we 'lost' Charles and Jake from this Forum. With their departure, their knowledge was lost also. The problem may be just one of poor expression perhaps ? Post 233 and others like it can be read as implying that LN and Flat Six are fools/thieves/other epithets. If that is incorrect , maybe the 233 needs to be modified ? At least note it is largely speculation ! Post 233 might have been useful if the poster had a more inquiring approach.

One can strive for perfection....but there is no perfection on this planet, in anything.

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As the OP, I differ in the thought process, the choice of three points you selected from the 17 pages of posts, and the conclusion. We know that the shop that replaced the original bearing did not follow the LNE-recommended procedures to evaluate a replacement. When I talked to Raby and LNE they made it clear they would never have allowed the replacement. The shop is now on their black list and LNE will not do business with them again. I've done my best to reconstruct the events into a narrative that passes the tests of math and engineering, Raby's experience through extended conversations and emails and his inspection and teardown of the engine, and my own observations. Is it the one and only possible explanation? No. But I think it's by far the most likely. Without a complete teardown, it is impossible to remove all metal particles from an engine and find all points of wear. An oil change does not clear out all of the oil, and if metal particles are embedded on surfaces they will also not come out. So after the original IMS bearing was replaced by the first LNE bearing, it would be foolish to assume the oil was clean (which I did, and I admit I was foolish/naive). The shop claimed to have flushed the oil once (or twice maybe, I can't recall) until the oil was "clear". Today, looking back on the shop's behavior, I think we can all agree that was complete BS. There should be no question that after the original bearing replacement, metal contamination remained in the engine; maybe a very small amount, but not zero. The default Porsche oil filter has a pressure valve that bypasses the filter when the oil is highly viscous, i.e. at startup. So the filter only works partially, and can't be expected to completely remove metal particles from the oil. And it could only filter particles in the oil, not those embedded in surfaces. From this, I believe it is impossible to conclude that the oil and all engine parts must have been clean for 12,000 miles and three oil changes, to be suddenly shaken up by some event, DE or not. Furthermore, particles will be embedded on surfaces and not return to the oil. Yes, DE shakeup was one of my early theories, but I would treat it skeptically and look for better explanations, such as: Metal particle damage is likely to be exponential. A certain percentage of particle content in the oil will cause some rate of additional wear, which produces more particles, which produces a higher wear rate, and so on. Classic exponential behavior. Put this together with the filter bypass and you have a highly believable case of a "sudden" growth of the exponential curve. Maybe the DE event accelerated it, maybe not, I really don't know. But we need to pay attention to exponential behavior: damage is growing at the same proportional rate all the time, but is not easily detectable until it crosses a threshold and then it "appears" to come out of nowhere all of a sudden. Think about the old questions about compound interest or how long it takes bacteria to fill the last half of a dish if it doubles each day. It only looks sudden, but the damage process has been going on for a long time. Yes of course. It stands to reason that most of the ferrous metal particles found 12,000 miles later are from the new LNE bearing. That's not at issue though. The question is what caused the damage to the new bearing; why did it start to fail? It is impossible to believe that the shop got the oil entirely clear of particles and that no engine surfaces had embedded particles that would throw off new particles under further operation. I fail to see a believable line of reasoning that eliminates the original IMS bearing and the shop's unprofessional behavior from being the original cause of wear of the new LNE bearing. LNE refuses to install a bearing under these conditions. Can you provide more information on this? Did you have the LNE bearing installed? Did the shop go through the LNE evaluation procedure? Was a spin-on oil filter installed? What were other salient facts? Do you have any evidence that LNE bearings fail in the manner you mentioned? As currently written these are implications, not evidence. Yes, LNE IMS bearings fail, but how many fail without any external cause such as existing particles? While you are right to point out another potential cause, in my case I think it extremely unlikely. Exponential wear behavior, oil filter bypass, and a dishonest shop that did the original replacement in spite of LNE's disallowing it are strong arguments to the contrary. If you can provide some evidence it would help bolster your argument. BTW I'm now at 41k on the reconstructed engine with IMS Solution and as reported before, zero metal in the filter or on mag drain plug.

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We haven�t lost Charles Navarro, and Jake/Jud still checks in from time to time. He just doesn�t get caught up in the bs. There�s still plenty of good info to be gleaned here - especially if you�ve been around long enough to know the difference between internet lore and reality. There will always be skeptics, and that�s actually a good thing. The danger is when skepticism becomes �truth� (without any corroberating evidence- sound familiar?). I think at the very least, 233 should have installed Pedro�s DOF with his off the shelf SKF bearing...

Quite a strong set of replies to my post � which I kind of expected. My apologies for the slow response, I�m in Australia and most of your replies were posted while I was asleep! And this is another lengthy post � sorry again! I�ve attached below a photo (not the best quality, sorry!) of my still intact LNE IMS bearing, showing one ball with surface pitting and cracks. The purpose of my post wasn�t to dispute that the original shop which did the OP�s IMS bearing replacement possibly performed a poor job, but to point out that newly-appearing debris may be entirely unconnected with an earlier bearing job � that is, it can be the quality of the bearing which is at fault, not necessarily the quality of the past job. The �to what end� question is simply to present an alternative view based on actual evidence of a manufacturing defect in an LNE bearing so not everyone with similar symptoms in the future need immediately rush to tear down their entire engine � at least, not before examining and ruling out the new bearing as the cause of the problem. Obviously, I�m talking from a perspective of a sample of one � my own bearing, in my own car. Obviously, so was the OP. Jake�s view, based on hundreds of failed motors, is different. However, even though my sample is much smaller than Jake�s, my experience is valid because that�s what actually occurred in my case. While no longer possible, it perhaps would have been interesting in hindsight to have an independent assessment of the state of the OP�s LNE bearing simply to determine how that bearing happened to be shedding so much metal. If it was wear from metal particles in the oil, then you�d expect to see some fairly uniform abrasion across all race surfaces in contact with the ceramic ***** I would guess. Such damage may well confirm the need to pull the engine apart. As an interesting aside, my bearing, which I suspect had been deteriorating from that failed ceramic ball for at least 6,000 miles, showed no wear at all in the adjacent unaffected race. It therefore seemed surprising to me that Jake would have rushed in with his conclusion that the LNE bearing was wearing out due to some (almost certainly very low) amount of small particles from the original failed bearing circulating in the oil from the original bearing job � even before the bearing was inspected. My (again, limited) experience showed that metallic debris in the oil (right inside the bearing in fact) doesn�t necessarily damage a bearing race like a pitted hard ceramic ball can! So how many LNE hybrid bearings might fail like mine? I very much doubt my experience is an isolated one, given that in every x ceramic ***** made, some percentage might have a similar defect which is hidden until some point in time or mileage in the future. I could only guess that this number would be small. However, in terms of real-world experience, Jake might be the only person who would know for sure. What was interesting in this thread was that a defective bearing was barely considered as a possible cause (and in fact a cause actively discounted by Jake and others). Nutty Professor: Yes I think I must have read every post on every forum about IMS replacement by now. I changed out the LNE bearing on my engine myself, and saw first-hand the looseness of the bearing on the spindle, and then found the cause (one race was worn away to the extent that spinning the bearing was exceptionally rough). Finding the one ceramic ball with a failed surface was pretty definitive - and definitely not rocket science, although the ball does look a little like the surface of the moon ;-). To respond to your point, I didn�t �conclude� that the OP�s bearing failed in the same way mine did, just surmised that it could have been possible based on his description of his symptoms, and how similar they were to mine. �All other IMS retrofit products have a replacement interval. That doesn�t mean it is a defective product.� Of course, in general that is absolutely true. In my case, only one ceramic ball suffered from an apparent manufacturing defect. The other 17 ***** were perfect. The other race in the bearing unit was perfect. If that one ball hadn�t failed, I am confident that the LNE bearing unit would have lasted the life of the car. In my case, yes, the product was actually defective. How long that one ball lasted until it started cracking and pitting I have no real idea. It may have started to deteriorate long before it started to abrade the steel race for all I know. Schnell: Yes, my small number of posts means I�m most certainly not an �expert� and I�m not claiming more expertise than others on this or other forums. I simply have particular experience of a failed bearing which may or may not apply to other cases. My only message is to suggest that others with similar symptoms check the IMS bearing � regardless of it being a LNE bearing or otherwise � as a first step to determine if and how it is failing. Especially so, given there�s no disagreement that whatever the cause of its failure, the LNE bearing in the OP�s engine was the source of the new steel debris he was finding. OP- thanks for responding, glad to hear you�re still enjoying your car! I realise that the points I picked up would not necessarily be definitive as to the cause of your engine�s distress. However, they did follow a chronological �discovery� and included early assumptions which other owners with similar symptoms might also be considering. Dporto � this is probably not the thread to get into (yet another) discussion on which kind of IMS bearing is the best. I happen to agree entirely with LNE�s use of a ball bearing unit with one seal removed. Certainly, in my case of my LNE bearing, the simple act of removing the outward-facing seal seemed to provide the bearing with completely adequate lubrication (if lubrication was inadequate I�d expected to have seen some kind of wear across other ceramic *****, and in the other race). I accordingly removed the outer seal from the SKF bearing I replaced it with. The other very beneficial outcome of not having that seal is that debris is washed out of the bearing � and into the sump and oil filter � as soon as wear starts to occur (in contrast to the standard bearing which traps debris until one or both seals finally give way, which would probably be at the point of complete bearing failure). Lastly, any scepticism I�m belatedly injecting into this long-dormant thread is only to challenge some assertions and opinions that don�t necessarily look to the immediate and obvious sources of a problem. All I did in my case was first check the obvious source of the debris, and regardless of reputation or supposed longevity or how superbly or not it was installed in the first place, the cause was the bearing itself. In my case, perhaps not what popular or �expert� opinion might have suggested it to be. YMMV.

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Thank you for replying and I must admit, I enjoy a healthy debate as long as civility is maintained. That being said, in order for us to "see" your side, (no pun intended) we need you to take high resolution photographs of the dissembled ball bearings. Do you still have the IMS bearing or was it kept by the shop? It would also be helpful for your argument that the bearing be dissembled on video. That would remove any doubt of bias. I understand if that's not possible, especially if you didn't retain the bearing. A certified shop would have returned the bearing to LN. Questions - 1. Did you have the LN bearing installed on that car? 2. If so, how many miles on the LN before you had it swapped out?

"Dporto – this is probably not the thread to get into (yet another) discussion on which kind of IMS bearing is the best. I happen to agree entirely with LNE’s use of a ball bearing unit with one seal removed. Certainly, in my case of my LNE bearing, the simple act of removing the outward-facing seal seemed to provide the bearing with completely adequate lubrication (if lubrication was inadequate I’d expected to have seen some kind of wear across other ceramic *****, and in the other race). I accordingly removed the outer seal from the SKF bearing I replaced it with. The other very beneficial outcome of not having that seal is that debris is washed out of the bearing – and into the sump and oil filter – as soon as wear starts to occur (in contrast to the standard bearing which traps debris until one or both seals finally give way, which would probably be at the point of complete bearing failure)." You are correct - it's been discussed ad-nauseum, and the consensus is that the best replacement is a "plain bearing" (IMS Solution) and the second best are the hybrid retrofits that need replacement at specific intervals (time or milage). The fact that you had a hybrid bearing go bad, doesn't change this. It seems that regardless of the bearing (you used), if there is debris laden oil in your engine (unless your entire engine is adequately cleaned - cases split and cleaned ultrasonically) your bearing will fail prematurely. This has happened time and time again (even though you don't hear about it often as most of the people who go this route feel foolish in hindsight) and will continue to happen when debris laden engines aren't properly cleaned prior to bearing replacement.

Can't tell you how many times, I've seen these types of ads in Craigslist over the last few years. Bet the owner of this car didn't think to report back to Rennlist! This is the second one I've seen today. Folks, don't bury you head in the sand and think the IMS problem is a myth. https://raleigh.craigslist.org/cto/d...742557574.html

Thanks to Jake, my 996 engine has IMS Solution, billet steel rods, higher strength timing chains, and improved valve seats. He hit all the top risk items of this engine in one shot. This thing should last until Armageddon.

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Sorry if I missed it, but can I ask what you had FSI build for you? 3.8? 4.0? Really interested to know how the motor feels when you get it back.

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No change to the pistons, just repairing the damage and adding robustness items. Also other likely maintenance items like water pump, AOS, and a host of other small things. So, it feels about the same, a little better midrange torque due to the improved valve seats but IMHO hard to notice. Note this was over 4 years ago now.

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Mike has had the car back for a few years now. He did not opt for a "Performer" engine, so increased power was not an objective. Our program has evolved a lot since Mike's car was processed here. We no longer accept jobs like his, nor do we carry out any engine repairs. This place operates like a factory these days.

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Sorry, but that is a stock bearing in the photo shown. You can tell as the ball is shiny, chrome colored, and also we never used a factory style cage on our bearings. Lastly, all our races, both early and late, have easily identifiable markings that make clear the origin of the bearing. Long story short, I was skeptical this was one of our bearings having failed and the photo proves it. Ceramic ***** are dark grey, almost black, and cannot pit or crack.

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Thanks Jake. Would love to have one of your engines in my 996. Maybe one day....

"Sorry, but that is a stock bearing in the photo shown. You can tell as the ball is shiny, chrome colored, and also we never used a factory style cage on our bearings. Lastly, all our races, both early and late, have easily identifiable markings that make clear the origin of the bearing. Long story short, I was skeptical this was one of our bearings having failed and the photo proves it. Ceramic ***** are dark grey, almost black, and cannot pit or crack." ^^^ And the plot thickens!!!

If no debris was detected in previous oil changes and now appears, why we should assume that they are from a previous deffective IMS? For me, the right assumption is that that debris is from an actual failure (i dont know if IMS or not) after the track day. If it is form the IMS, the question should be, why it has failed so soon.

People should check themselves before pointing fingers. No Classic Dual Row IMS Retrofit Bearing has steel *****, further the groove on the OD of the bearing in the poto posted by the �plantiff� clearly shows a groove machined to accept the stock Porsche IMS bearing �internal wire lock�. This is also a feature that the Classic Dual Row has never had, as it uses a spiral lock to be retained into the engine, not an internal wire lock. Put simply, the complaint is concerning a factory IMS Bearing, so it appears someone has lied to someone, and lots of people have been targeted, and accused of things for no reason. This is what pisses me off about these foums, and makes me want to burn my whole facility to the ground, and walk away. Forum, police your own, else you�ll lose valuable input from people being falsely accused for developing, and supplying �junk�. Jake Raby

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I am new in this forum but I see that you are really upset and tired of this discussions Forums are only that... forums

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Thats easy to say when you don�t have 15+ years of your life invested in the development of a product, only to be falsely accused for something that you did not do. I take the things that l develop as seriously as my family. When being attacked, l respond accordingly. It really pisses me off when overly opinionated people step to make a false complaint. This guy dug up a thread years old to specifically call us out for no reason.

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I'll be damned... I can't believe I wasted precious time on this guy. The Aussi from down under needs to come up and smell what he's been shoveling. Nothing like a little ray of sunlight to expose the truth. Either this guy didn't have a clue his failed bearing wasn't an LN OR he's trying to spread lies and smear LN and Raby. Glad Charles came on the thread and identified it wasn't what CBR944 claimed. I'm looking forward to this guy's response. Let's hope he's enough of a man to admit the fault and clear the air in this place.

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What chaps my a** is when someone cries wolf and complains about my product and my company without first contacting us if they do indeed have a legit complaint or problem. However if the guidelines that are laid out aren't adhered to and there is a failure and they are upset and choose to bellyache on the forums, that is their own fault. It is easier to be a victim than a failure. In this instance, the original IMS bearing was failing because it was the original bearing and should have been already replaced before it had failed, regardless of whose IMS bearing technology was employed, after the engine had been properly qualified. If the poster was told that the bearing had been replaced when it clearly wasn't, that's on the previous owner or the shop that supposedly carried out the bearing replacement. What more than likely happened is the flange was replaced or resealed rather than the bearing having been replaced.

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Totally understand. But if you are in the business for so long, sure you have already learned that "promoters" and "detractors" is something inherent to almost any commercial/business activity. And probably, both with the same real and valuable reasons. So the best approach IMO, is always keep working hard to give the best service to keep those happy ones happier, and those not so happy ones, a little more happy From one "service provider" to other

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Now I know why you don't actively participate in the forums anymore. It's a shame.

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l�m a developer, not a �service provider�. Just to clarify.

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You're a service provider and a developer. People ship their cars to you to have a service provided that includes things you've developed. The fact that you've developed some things doesn't mean you have to be rude to everyone that doesn't agree with you.

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Your first post on Rennlist is to criticize Jake Raby for merely defending the product that he spent more than a decade to research, engineer, and patent? Come on, really? This is the very reason he hasn't been active on the forums. If he wants to classify himself as a developer rather than a "service provider", then more power to him. The forums like Rennlist, need more people like Jake Raby. Who cares if he gives people a pill that's a little hard to swallow. If you want to "have it your way", then go to Burger King. But let the man breath a little around here for goodness sakes. I hate having to dig through 10 years of old threads to learn from the man. Thank goodness he started the YouTube channel. At least I can hope he'll post more topics on the 996 and 997, but if people keep complaining about free information, then I'm pretty sure he'll stop doing video too. (venting over)

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What I just read in this thread doesn't show any reason to give someone breathing room. The posts are always on the attack while simultaneously being on the defense and being rude at the same time. You're speaking of this person as if they're a profit, but even then, there's no reason to be so hateful against someone bringing another angle to the discussion. Edit: These are posts made by someone that sells engine rebuilds. Would you take this type of attitude from anyone offering to rebuild your engine that has an attitude of you being in the wrong?

Sometimes I don't even know why I get involved... Jake, Judd, and Charles are also known to help a lot of people that don't pay them. They have real experience that is valuable to our community and their contributions are appreciated. They are also mechanics, not concierges, so... don't expect them to kiss your ***. *sigh*

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+1 Exactly! We need more people like this to help us. I can't tell you how many times I've learned from Raby's old posts or taken his advice when tackling a problem on my own. The certified installer that handled my IMS Solution install was actually in the Marines with Raby and had nothing but positive things to say about the man. I have a close friend that is a Marine. When talking to him, it's hard to not to think about some of the posts that Raby wrote. Marines are not cut from the same cloth. They're not going to sugar coat anything or tickle your ear. They call it like they see it and expect respect. You show them respect, and they'll return it. You disrespect them and all hell will break loose. Simple as that.

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Dude I'm an active duty Marine of 8 1/2 years. That's no excuse.

Some things never change. Its my fault for even considering making a post. See ya in a couple of years- Raby- Out

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The correct spelling is prophet and if you are going to jump into a forum as a troll, try not to sound illiterate when attacking an expert.

Everyone is so damned determined to censure Raby for just speaking the truth direct, all the while letting another clown off the hook for basically spreading lies in the forum. Thanks a lot Trent! If you're such a honorable Marine, tell me why in the world did you come to the forum and setup an account just to blast him? Why not grow some and call him on the phone and speak man-to-man? If you'd implement the fortitude that was taught to you in basic training, you'd know very well the right thing to do. I'm sure he'd love to give you a piece of his mind. But you don't, cause you'd rather coward behind your computer and throw digital spit *****. Some of us value the free information the experts are willingly give out on the forums. Much better than giving tithes to the church of the holy Porsche barista that's for sure.

Some people just want to stir the Sh%& up and blow it for the rest of us...

Nope, definitely a ceramic hybrid bearing, not steel. I'll see if I can post some better photos. This was definitely not a stock bearing, much as people on this forum with vested interests might like it to be.

Quotes source post: 15438124

The photo posted earlier was most certainly not a ceramic hybrid. It has spalling just like all worn stock bearings that are at stage 3 failure. Ceramic ***** are never the color of what was posted in your original photo. Never. No classic dual row has NEVER had a groove machined on the OD of the outer race for the internal wire lock. Not once. Not ever. Never. The LN Bearing is rertained with a spiral lock that sits against the aft face of the bearing, and winds into the retention groove, therefore it does not need, or use the internal wire lock. Post photos of the bearing flange as well as the bearing, and even better post a video with a newspaper headline with today�s date on it simultaneously along with the footage of the bearing, and the flange. Also, include the spiral lock that was retaining this in the IMS shaft in the footage. What you may have is some sort of home brewed kit that someone came up with using a conventional bearing, telling you that it was an LN bearing. People lie.

FYI- Here’s a pic that was taken of a stock factory IMS Bearing that was at Stage 3 failure. This came from Chris Powell at Chris’ German Auto at least 5 years ago. Chris is a member of the National PCA Technical Committee and submitted this to usa for training purposes. I have screen captured the entire slide from my M96 “101” Training session that includes this photo. Now, does anything here look familiar in comparison with what the “plantiff” had posted earlier as an LN Bearing?

Below is a pic of an LN IMS Bearing that was posted elsewhere on Rennlist, and was not taken from any of our databases. This pic can be found in Google and liked here to Rennlist. Its a member posted photo. See the color of the *****? See the composition of the cage? All LN bearings look like this, and have since day one. Nothing has ever looked like the bearing the �plantiff� posted... Well, nothing except a stock bearing thats at stage 3 failure.

There is no groove in the outer race. That's a shadow from the flash. The ***** are not steel. The difference between the hybrid bearing I removed and the skf all-steel bearing I replaced it with is pretty stark. At the end of the day, the point of my first point was not to claim there is anything 'wrong' with LN bearings, but to suggest that anyone with the same symptoms as the OP (and me) with ferrous metal debris check the bearing first. Collect your own evidence in what is wrong with your car. Don't take the word of anyone who hasn't seen your bearing first hand, don't take the word of people on internet forums, including me and the many 'experts' here. Cheers!

Quotes source post: 15438229

Time for a video of these “non steel” *****. Grab a dremel, or a disc grinder and cut the outer race in half. Doing this is easy. If you do not have a dremel that will do this, l will be happy to paypal you the funds to go purchase one for this comparison. Once the outer race is cut in half, the ***** will be ejected. Grab a ball, and a magnet. See if the ***** removed from this supposed LN bearing are attracted to the magnet. Video this, and please post this for the overall benefit of the forum. When you are done, you’ll end up with a free dremel, so you have nothing to lose, and only something to gain. When can you do this? Happy to make a DIY video for you in case you can’t follow what l’m asking for... Matter of fact, l’ll make it this week’s featured technical video on the Rennvision Youtube channel! Heck, if you want we can have a “youtube Live” while you are dissecting the bearing. Always game for a round of fun. Whaddya say?

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Actually, it was pretty clear that you wanted to strongly suggest the failing bearing was and is a ceramic hybrid LN bearing and that it caused the metal races to deteriorate and shed metal into the engine. When Charles and Jake prove otherwise, you now backpedal your argument to “my first point was not to claim there is anything wrong with LN bearings”. You have no evidence or credibility in my opinion. You haven’t posted any clearer images or provided any substantial proof; yet, you continue to self incriminate yourself.

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Thank you for the spelling correction. I'm not trying to censor anyone, just posting that someone posted evidence of a bearing failure that didn't disparage anyone directly and he/she was attacked and claimed a liar by someone that makes money by building engines for a living.There was actual evidence posted and the OP was attacked because an engine builder disagreed with them. It doesn't matter what you agree or disagree on, what matters are the facts. The customer had their IMS bearing replaced with a ceramic IMS bearing. The fact that the customer posted that their bearing had failed shouldn't mean that they're automatically wrong. Production runs go wrong, and sometimes bearings fail. Yet there's an engine builder here who has taken personal offense to this bearing failure and has, a result of this post, lashed out at current and potential customers.There are no reasonable or logical responses presented by Flat6Industries that would disparage the claims by user CBR944 of a failed ceramic bearing. The sole claim is "You are wrong becuase I have experience, and I have seen a failed ceramic bearing and it doesn't look like that." In regards to your very personal defamatory post, you personally have never been to recruit training at either of the MCRD's and if you did you wouldn't bring it up like it's some defining feature of military service. The fact that you're in, or have been in, the military doesn't mean you have free reign to be rude to anyone that opposes you. I'm an active duty Marine and I'll provide any proof requested of that. If Jake Raby can provide a DD214 with his full legal name and a favorable characterization of service on it, I'll drive my 911 down to his shop and give it to him. I read a thread about something and encountered people being incredibly rude a poster for no reason other than the status quo. It's time to change the status quo.

Quotes source post: 15438395

First of all, it’s censure, not censor. Two totally different meanings. You're also getting the OP confused with CBR944. The OP took Raby’s advice and now is a happier 996 owner because of it. CBR944 just came into the thread to just shake things up after closure had been reached. Until he proves himself with solid evidence, he’s lying or greatly misguided in my book. That’s based on what I’ve witnessed in this thread. At first, I tried hard to see his side, but after multiple attempts to get questions answered only get ignored, I knew I smelled a rat. And, why you signed up to just criticize Raby’s demeanor is beyond me. It seems your disdain for Raby could’ve been better handled in a PM or phone call.

Bearing hostage photo No groove in outer race ***** are dark grey I've probably posted images which are too large, but here's the first ever "hostage photo" of a ball bearing, just to show that I do have the bearing... and it will be unharmed. Unfortunately I can't provide proof of life. It's inanimate. On the last photo you can see a discoloured part of the inner race. I think this was the section that was wearing the fastest (and heating up from friction). Enjoy!!

Thank you for posting these photos. Where's the wear on the ***** that matches your original post? I do not see anything wrong with the ***** of this bearing in these posted photos. This bearing that you have most recently posted is a ceramic hybrid, but it does not match the previous photos. I can also tell that it is an LN bearing from the composition of the bearing. Your previous complaint was clearly that the ***** were wearing, and you specifically called out this in post 242 of this thread as quoted below: Its pretty clear to me that you have more than one bearing, or that you at least have (and posted) photos of more than one bearing. Please post photos of the supposed "pitted ceramic ball" that match the photo posted in post 242. That was a crappy photo, but the typical wear thats associated with a conventional ball bearing was very evident on those *****. If the bearing is not going to be reused, go ahead and chop it in half and get some better pics of the "worn *****" for us. Debris laden oil is what creates worn races, the running clearances are so tight that debris laden oil enters the raceways and something has to give, and it won't be the *****. The smaller the debris, the easier it is suspended in the oil, and the more harmful it is, big pieces won't ever "go there". Glad to see that we are getting somewhere, but the equation is still missing a few elements.

Quotes source post: 15432048

These are clearly two different bearings.

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Quotes source post: 15438738

One is more than likely the bearing that was extracted while at Stage 3 failure. The other is likely the bearing that replaced the aforementioned bearing. If so, this further conclusively supports the fact that retrofitting a bearing that is in the process of failure is not wise.

Wow. I think I've been pretty patient I think so far. I�ve been told: �Bearings are never that color. Never� �That�s most certainly not a ceramic hybrid� �The complaint is concerning a factory IMS bearing, and lots of people have been targeted and accused of things for no reason� �In this instance the bearing was failing because it was the original bearing� �It really pisses me off when overly opinionated people step up to make a false complaint. This guy dug up a thread years old to specifically call us out for no reason� �He�s falsely accusing people for developing and supplying junk� �This Aussie from down under needs to come up and smell what he�s been shovelling. Either he didn�t have a clue or is trying to spread lies and smear LN and Raby� And now, �It is pretty clear to me that you have more than one bearing, or that you have posted photos of more than one bearing�. Hey, it�s great isn�t it when forums like this one encourage a view which is a little different from the accepted wisdom, isn�t it? Apart from Trent and one or two others, people here have been pretty quick to dismiss everything I�ve posted and claim I�m lying and/or clueless. And what would my motivation be? I�m not a bearing seller or engine rebuilder. I have no interest in whether people believe me or not. The purpose of my post is not to suggest people shouldn�t buy LN products, only to be open minded and check for themselves what is going on with their own car. While I�m not sure there�s any point in continuing to provide evidence which gets dismissed at every turn, I do only have one bearing . The bearing in all the photos is the same bearing . This is a ceramic hybrid LN bearing , which was installed in my 2001 Boxster S as part of an IMS Retrofit (ironically as a preventative measure). Another hostage photo, this one showing the damaged ceramic ball Yet another view, pitted and cracked ball top centre Another view, damaged ball on the right Yes, I could take a dremel to it and open it up, but what�s the point? People who don�t want to take my advice which is to check the bearing (the one in the car at the time) when they find steel debris are welcome to do as they like. Fantasists who want to believe that ceramic hybrid bearings never fail on their own accord can continue to so believe. If the response of any forum member is to repeatedly dismiss a fair and reasonable suggestion out of hand, perhaps it�s worth asking what might be their motivation for actively campaigning against a different view? And by the way, here's some actual research on how ceramic ball bearings fail (Especially for NuttyProf, it's been written by actual rocket scientists!) http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc...=rep1&type=pdf Good luck!

Please cut the bearing, and remove the *****.. The photos are too unclear without doing this. If you don�t want to do this l will pay for air shipping to get the bearing here, and l�ll start shooting video as soon as the Fed Ex truck arrives with the beasring. l�ll video the unboxing, and l�ll cut it in half right away, non stop with video rolling, and post it. l have to see this first hand to believe it. Thats so far from what l have seen when using silicon nitride for any engine component, not just IMS Bearings. As soon as the bearing was found with a problem, it should have been brought to the attention of LN, anyway, and l am sure that Charles would have asked for the bearing, and paid shipping, and probably more. Your �Motivation� is also unclear, but is pretty clear that you have an axe to grind, for some reason. If you didn�t, this issue would have been presented to the vendor first, as it should have been. If you don�t have two bearings, where is the original bearing? Where�s the installation invoice? l think we�ve been pretty patient while awaiting these things to be posted. Things just don�t add up, as l am sure that you�ll agree.

Inb4 "You've pitted that ball with a screwdriver yourself", hah. No all jokes aside, interesting stuff. The perspective on the first-posted pic and the later ones is a bit puzzling, which may lead people to concluding they're different. Clearly the ***** are coated in oil, and the shine of the wetness makes it look like the ***** were steel in the first low-res picture. I understand Jake's skepticism, though am unclear about the hostility. I don't think a user has an axe to grind simply because he's sharing his failed bearing instead of contacting the manufacturer and claiming damages - I appreciate any and all data. Also it ensures no incentives were offered to not go public with it - business is business after all and if this is an isolated matter, I wouldn't want it to become public either. In absence of absolute certainty, though, I'd assume that the poster's 'motivation' is simply the free flow of information - this is what the internet is for, after all. Not contacting the vendor first (for a part I don't think he purchased himself anyway?) doesn't immediately indicate malicious intent. However, scolding the poster and quite frankly publically accusing him of foul play/lying/conspiracy might damage reputations more than just having one of your bearings fail. The fact is that it appears CBR944 has an LNE Retrofit with a destroyed ceramic ball, which was always said to be impossible. I find it interesting to see why it failed, even more so since only one of the ***** failed. It stands to reason that manufacturing defects are a possibility in ceramic ***** after all, since any other underlying cause would have - on grounds of cylindrical symmetry - affected the other ***** as well.

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All l care about is the truth. If it turns out that l am wrong, I�ll take that on the chin, and it won�t be the first time that it�s happened. If that plays out- so be it. I don�t believe that it will. CBR944 has avoided question after question here, so that doesn�t help with the skepticism either. It�s not that hard to provide a direct answer to a direct question. At the end end of the day l am far beyond caring about my �reputation�. Character is my concern, and my character is set in stone to never allow anyone to attack me, or what l believe in, and get away with it. That said, l am actually a 3rd party here as l have nothing to gain, or nothing to lose... Truly no dog in the fight. I haven�t had anything to do with these IMS products since 2009.

Quotes source post: 15440618

You have this the other way around. When this thread was brought back to life, CBR944 was the one who was judgemental, accusatory, and from my perspective, on a mission to prove a point that �it�s possible we were all wrong� and to specifically pick a fight about an LN bearing. And then when it came time to show actual evidence, the evidence submitted was clearly not good enough to warrant credibility. If CBR944 doesn�t want to provide proper evidence by sending the bearing in, then we are wasting our time and might as well go and post in the �Chris Harris crashed his T� thread. Because there are a bunch of folks that weren�t there that seem to know the answers as to what happened.

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I respect your opinion but disagree, I think this forum is hypersensitive when it comes to IMSB, specifically LNE's products. But that's just my 2c. I'm not reading the hostility, but acknowledge he is trying to show that it's possible for a ceramic bearing to fail - and that indeed goes against the collective belief on this forum. You do clearly see in the photo's provided that one ceramic ball has cracked while others are ok, don't you?

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It�s really difficult to see. I guess if I used my imagination I can some something there.

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I'm not sure if you're serious? Could it be you're looking on a small phone-screen? In my humble opinion it's clear as day thay one of the ***** is not like the others. If you really don't see it, expand this pic to full-size by clicking here and zoom in on the circled area; koJ6fGP.jpg

I don�t think he�s being hostile either. Probably just upset he needs a new motor. I would be too. The ball bearing looks shiny because it is wet with oil. No reason to doubt he�s being honest. But I also wouldn�t have bought a car that had previous metal shavings, even if the IMSB was replaced. I think that�s playing Russian Roulette.

"If the response of any forum member is to repeatedly dismiss a fair and reasonable suggestion out of hand, perhaps it’s worth asking what might be their motivation for actively campaigning against a different view? And by the way, here's some actual research on how ceramic ball bearings fail (Especially for NuttyProf, it's been written by actual rocket scientists!) http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc...=rep1&type=pdf " Interesting study, most likely somewhat relevant to our use, but certainly no direct correlation. The big variable in our cars that's not accounted for in the test, is debris laden oil (surprise). I don't think anyone has "dismissed a fair and reasonable suggestion out of hand". The OP has been asked repeatedly to back up his claims with better photo's, receipts for work completed or to dissect his bearing (Jake even offered to buy him a Dremel tool, or just send him the bearing and he would video the proceedure). CBR944 has repeatedly obfuscated and/or deflected...I hope this gets resolved, but I'm not holding my breath...

Quotes source post: 15440490

Yes, there are detractors to ceramic hybrid bearings referring to old research and technical papers on ceramics that are out of date, but there are different quality *****, and we use the best of the best from Coors Tek: https://www.coorstek.com/english/products/cerbec/ What needs to happen is the bearing needs to be disassembled and cleaned for inspection. These photos are not definitive proof of anything other than an LN bearing shown full of debris laden oil.The original photo was cropped - where is the un-cropped version. I want to see the whole original photo posted. I still believe the original photo posted is one of a failing original bearing, not one of our bearings and the circumstances surrounding this post are also questionable. A fully documented disassembly will clear this issue up once and for all. But for sake of transparency, I will be the first to admit, as I have in the past, that we have seen examples of our bearings fail, but again, what I can tell you is that we have never seen a dual row IMS Retrofit fail or even had a single report of one failing. Additional information would be beneficial we we can get a clear picture. What is the serial number for this bearing? I would also like to see the flange and back side of the bearing. Did you purchase the car with the bearing fitted or did you do the installation yourself? What was the condition of the original bearing? Was the installation registered? What is the ticket number for when you contacted LN Engineering? I cannot find any record of you having attempted to contact LN. If you don't want to post this publicly, I would suggest opening a support ticket at http://support.lnengineering.com so that we can get to the bottom of this. Manufacturers should be contacted first and given the chance to review the facts. In some cases, customers don't like the outcome of our review, however, in most cases, I usually go out of my way to help individuals in situations like this. However, trolling an old thread isn't the best way to accomplish anything but show you have an ax to grind. Again, it's easier to be a victim than a failure and I refer you back to my original post of why was LN not contacted back when this first occurred and why am I reading this on a thread on Rennlist?

Quotes source post: 15441126

If one of our bearings are put into an engine that has suffered a previous failure and then the replacement bearing has a problem, there is no reason to come crying to the forums or to LN for that matter. There is a reason we have pre-qualification requirements and it's not to be difficult.

Quotes source post: 15441100

What it looks like to me is there is a lot of debris on that bearing and the oil in it is laden with contaminants. I agree it's hard to take photos of these components, but that clearly does not look like the bearing posted with ball that looked like the surface of the moon. Without clearer pictures, nothing is going to be accomplished by continuing this he said she said business.

Quotes source post: 15440618

I disagree with you on this. These photos do not prove this is a failed LN bearing. What I will agree to is there is a lot of debris on and possibly in the bearing, but disassembly with clear photos would be required to definitively ascertain the condition of this bearing. Trying to come up with any conclusions from these photos is an exercise in futility. When there have been instances of defective single row bearings, in every instance there was signs of mechanical overloading of the races, but never has a ball show or measured to have any wear. I will be the first to admit there is always a first for most everything, but again, why was LN not contacted immediately when this occurred? I would have for one liked to get this bearing back and send it to the manufacturer to try to figure out why, if it did indeed, fail. You can't take corrective action if you don't know there is a problem in the first place.

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I agree it looks dirty, though this seems to be mostly dust as it has been gathering exactly that for the past few months outside of the engine. I agree that further dissection is required to fully understand the extent and cause of the damage, however I stand firm in my assessment that one of the ***** is different than the others and, from the last set of photos provided, shows clear signs of damage / cracking. I think it's impossible to refute this from the current state of evidence, and it is therefore mainly aimed at those who claimed to see absolutely nothing wrong with it. The pictures are bad, but they're clear enough to spot something is wrong. I understand this causes skepticism, however this is unfortunately the effect of low-resolution pictures and our brains trying to fill in blanks. Funny that you say "the surface of the moon", as the actual surface of Mars was a good example of this:

That's a perfect example. The bearings are easy to disassemble. The ball separator (cage) will pop out, freeing the ceramic *****. Removing the seal from the other side will help further in bearing disassembly.

Quotes source post: 15436060

Totally agree I am an engineer also, but at the end of the day, I am providing a service too.

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I will be picking up my 2003 996 from Jake in the next day or so. On my first oil change after purchasing the car, I dropped the sump cover and found parts of a timing chain roller (one of the 27 failure modes). After communicating with Jake on Flat 6's ticket system over a weekend and then talking to him on the phone, I decided sending the car to him and his team to fix was the right decision for me. The primary reason I did is similar to your reasoning--I bought the car I plan on keeping forever, so why would I drive the car until the engine blows up? I looked at a *lot* of 996s before buying mine and passed on them because they had clearly been used and abused. The one I bought was optioned exactly the way I wanted and had mostly been taken care of during it's 44K miles. I also had other stuff replaced while the engine was out--the labor is the same whether you put the old water pump back on or a new one. These items were replaced on mine: clutch (they said it was down to the rivets) Air Oil Separator Starter (because I could tell it was starting to fail) Water pump (it was leaking and I was planning on replacing it myself until I found part of the timing chain in the sump) Coolant expansion tank Timing chains IMS Solution installed I didn't have the alternator replaced because it was working fine and had been replaced in the last few years. Yes, my bank account is lighter than I'd like after this, but I can now drive my 996 without wondering if the engine is going to blow up if I plant my right foot. And frankly, considering I had already planned on installing the IMS solution, only about 1/2 of the money I spent was because the of the timing chains and all of the other stuff, so I'm very happy with Flat 6's work.

Quotes source post: 15441327

He I’ve been waiting patiently for two days for CBR944 to answer simple questions and post video of the bearing being disassembled or at least better images of the supposedly damaged ceramic ball, but all we’ve received is just more images that aren’t clear enough to enlarge to see the area in question. I find it hard to believe in today’s iPhone world, that someone doesn’t have the capability to shoot a decent macro photo of a ceramic ball. All it would take in my book is a flashlight with the camera pointed close at the bearing. Since we don’t know the history on the car or when the LN bearing was installed in the boxster or miles on the bearing, we can’t be conclusive on anything, but we can conclude the poster had some kind of agenda for reopening a very old thread and avoiding very important questions and challenges. Since he provided very weak evidence, I would conclude he hypothesis has no merit. I’m someone that just had an LN bearing installed on my car, and so I was very interested in his position, but was very apprehensive to the basis of his argument. This horse is dead. Happy Thanksgiving! NuttyProfessor

I haven�t responded as this thread became derailed through escalating demands for a forensic dissection of my bearing blah blah blah. I�ve posted numerous photos now, and that�s where my interest ends. I responded to this old thread as it was about �old IMS shavings now showing up�. I simply added my own experience, which had the same symptoms but a different cause, to offer the suggestion to the forum that with these symptoms it�s a good idea to check the bearing in the car as any bearing can fail for no good reason � and as unlikely as it may seem - even a new(ish) replacement. This just turned into a rolling maul, rather than a sensible or reasonable discussion, demanding �proof� and questioning my motivations, capability and honesty. Any sensible assessment of what passed for debate in this thread would see that there was less genuine interest in understanding an alternative cause for steel debris than simply seeking to quickly dismiss my experience as fake. I never �raised a ticket� with LN as I wasn�t concerned with redress � the PO had bought it, not me, and it was just my bad luck the bearing failed. I was more than happy to replace it with a standard off-the-shelf dual row item at my cost. Not everyone �has an axe to grind�. The people who insist on this �proof� aren�t the ones I was directing my first post to. If you�re reading this with an open mind and you have what you think might be �old IMS shavings showing up�, then it doesn�t matter if you believe my bearing failed due to an (apparently) rare defect or not. Your bearing might be failing on its own accord � check it first. Cheers everyone!

How do you know the bearing you pulled was in fact a LN replacement?

808Bill, I can�t speak for the OP, but in my personal experience, the LN units are distinct looking: they have unique machining and marking that is very different from original equipment castings (I think the original is cast, versus the LN unit being machined, but I couldn�t swear to it). Kinda� crappy photos, but I think you can see what I mean from the flanges alone on two engines I have in the garage: