Picked up my fixed up car yesterday

aside from having a minor heart attack at the bill, she's good as new. That port/polish of the head and the manifold sure makes her pull hard until 7K rpms Onto the specifics. Here are the parts used. I had them change out any hoses/gaskets, etc that remotely were difficult to get to. New AOS just in case, new water pump, new X51 oil pan, chain guides, the IMS retrofit etc, etc. Here is the IMS bearing that came out of the car. Looks brand new. 90K miles. Remove and replace engine, heads and water pump Match port heads Resurface heads, replace all the valves and guide seals Replace all the Valve Seats All Intake and Exhaust valves (24) 2 Head Gaskets 2 O-Rings (1) 6 O-Rings (2) 6 Other gaskets 8 'Lids' 2 Rails (chain guides) 6 O-Rings (3) 2 O-Rings (4 - you guessed it. A lot of o-rings) 1 Oil Filler Tube (mechanic noticed the base was leaking. This part is plastic) 1 Vent Line 1 AOS (Air Oil Separator) 1 Water Pump 1 Water Pump Gasket 2 Intake gaskets 6 Other Intake Gaskets 2 Exhaust Manifolds gaskets 2 Exhaust gaskets 1 X-51 Oil Pan (deeper w/ baffles) 1 Oil Filter 2 Hoses (coolant hoses that were replaced and are a bitch to get to) 1 Outlet flange 9 quarts of oil 2 gallons of coolant 6 spark plugs 1 Intermediate Shaft Bearing (aftermarket+tool) All accessory and serpentine belts

Must drive like a new car, awesome! You'll have that baby forever. That's good to hear about the stock IMS bearing. Half the folks will say "I told you so", and the other half will say "wow, you're so lucky to have had one of the good ones". Lol! It might be bad form to ask, but if you can do it without passing out, may I ask how much the whole bill was? I'm almost afraid to.

"That ...polish of the head and the manifold sure makes her pull hard" Tell her to be more gentle next time

the total cost, including tax for everything came out to be $9400. This is a much 'better deal' than the 17K I had been mentally preparing the moment I heard the sound. But remember, about 3K of the cost is the head port and polish, and to resurface the head etc. The 996 motor's other weak point is the valve seats.

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Painful, but all things considered.. not bad at all!

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+1 Remind me what year is your C4S?

2003

pop the seals off that bearing so we can see the race and ***** that is where you would see any issues

Yup, I'd agree, not too bad. Hard pill to swallow, but still. You've got a completely new top end (side end??)

Where did you have the work performed?

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+1

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Yeah, I'd like to know the shop too. Thanks.

I took the seals off. There's no noticeable signs of wear. And there was no play either.

...and the plot thickens... :-)

thanks for the view looks fairly wet with engine oil, is that a fair statement?

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If so, maybe that's what kept it from failing.

for those who missed part 1... why did you go through this? what was the failure? Thanks..

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As Bon Jovi would say.... This IMS bearing has been out of the car sitting on the bench for a couple of weeks sloooowly seeping of the oil that was inside, so yea, it was well lubricated

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Initially, I had no idea, but I do know I had pulled up to a gas station after a drive and as I was pulling into the pump area, I heard a noise that was pretty much like a spun bearing, rod, metal marbles in a can, etc. I shut off the engine pretty immediately, as in within a second. So, obviously, after reading all the posts here, I thought my number was up on the IMS. Had the car diagnosed and cylinder 5 had 90% compression. Pulled out the motor and it was found that the valve seats had disintegrated and the others had stress cracks. So, I had the top end redone completely and I figured while everything was apart, may as well do the IMS bearing. As you can see, the IMS bearing was in perfect shape, but at least that's been 'taken care of'.

Did you find out what caused the noise you heard? I assume it's not pieces of the valve seat in the combustion chamber, otherwise you probably would have replaced the pistons, right? Just curious; thanks for the info.

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there were small fragments of the seat material in the combustion chamber, but because I was idling and turned the thing off almost immediately, the 'pits' caused by the seat material was really minimal and the cylinder walls had no damage/scoring. So I didn't have to replace the piston. Here is the picture, which looks al lot worse than it was. I made it clear that I had no problems replacing the piston. Here is the normal piston for comparison

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Valve seats failing? Wow. It is possible but quite rare in my experience. I have come across at least one Boxster with a broken valve (intake) spring but I don't think I've ever heard of a modern Porsche engine having a valve seat go bad. That others were going bad suggests a bad batch of valve seats.... If you have an engine with one there have to be others though. It just occurred to me though that with so many "failed" engines being removed and shipped back to the factory and a new engine installed -- under warranty at least -- that maybe some of the IMS failures were actually valve seat failures. Since the noise symptoms seem so similar -- based on your description and those of other owners who've had their engine suffer the IMS failure we can likely never know. Anyhow, sounds like you got the engine repaired and back up to good health with less expense that I would have thought. I'm glad you found a way to resurrect the engine without have to spring for a new one. Nice going. If you haven't already, share the name of place you had teh work done. Sounds like a place to file away just in case... Sincerely, Macster.