Who has installed an IMS Guardian?

Just curious as to peoples experiences installing the Flat-6 IMS Guardian. Difficulty, time involved, experiences, and general opinions of the operation of the unit. Thank you

Go to Jake's R.E.D. link - sign up for the newsletter. There is a install video he made that consists of something like the full 14 steps along with commentary. I already had them do my IMSR and other 'while you're in there' type of parts like spark plugs, water pump, and some other items. I would get it.... sounds like good extra protection for the M96 engine. I had shipped my car down

Has anyone who has done the IMS upgrade also installed the Guardian? I did the upgrade last spring so the Guardian seems less important. I think I like the upgrade better than the guardian. Although it is much less expensive.

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I'm curious about this, too. I've had the LNE bearing upgrade for nearly three years. I don't even know if the Guardian would work with the LNE bearing material.

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That is a really good question!

It can detect the material shed from the LNE bearing race. It can also detect other ferrous materials from the engine such as rods, crank, cams, etc.

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https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...n-install.html Comments were posted in this thread which may help. I only had two issues - connecting the power jumper (didn't realize there were three latches) and running the line from inside cabin to the outside. Video wasn't clear and it was my first time doing this. Once I figured it out, all else went fine. Works great and I now have some peace of mind. Hope to never ever hear it go off!!

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I'm sure a search would bring it up somewhere but Jake has said that it would be added protection for folks who have already replaced their bearing. Maybe it's on his website but I'm pretty sure he's also made the comment on Rennlist. Also, keep in mind, the LNE bearing isn't intended to last forever. It has an expected life of about 4-5yrs/50-60K miles (according to LNE's website ) so it, too, will fail at some time. The IMS retrofit isn't a fix it and forget about it thing. LNE suggests that the IMS be treated as a routine maintenance item. -Eric

easy install. didn't take long at all... check out the link posted earlier by babylonboots... took me about 2.5 hours.

Easy to install. The most "difficult" and time consuming part is carefully running the wire from the dash to the back. Otherwise -- Great plug-in-play. I added flex-loom over the wire from the plug/sensor to the cabin grommet. Some don't recommend this because moisture could build up.

By my estimates over 3 billion Guardians have been sold and as of yet I have not heard of any stories of the alarm going off and the warm stories of countless engine saves . Granted many living in the Great White North are holding off installation until spring. But come on.... nothing on any website, chatrooms, tweets, or PBS "This American Life"

If I remember, Jake's newsletter or somewhere else tells us there have been one or two "saves" thus far. Whether that was the IMSB going south or some other component, not sure.

I plan to install mine at my next oil change - about a month away.

We have experienced a single IMS Alert. The testimonial from the owner of that car will be in our next newsletter along with the full story.. Funny thing is he bought the car that had the device installed, so the story is quite interesting. Here are 100 more heading to our UK Distributor on Monday... Another 50 will follow them on the way to Australia at the end of next week.. We finally have them back in stock after getting large orders filled.

Nice! I look forward to reading the story Jake. Great job with the product. I think I will get one at some point even though you did my IMSR work - I see it only as a benefit to M96 owners. What other engine costs 2-3 times what a V8 GM crate engine costs? (don't answer that!)

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Its not that the Porsche engine is too expensive... Its that the Generic Motors engine is too cheap, so cheap that they went bankrupt and WE had to bail their asses out! :-)

Exactly! The funny thing is Ford did not take a bailout because the Ford family would have had to changed the way their preferred stock is setup and would make them much less rich than they are, so they took a pass on the bailout for that reason. I'm glad I was able to get some Ford stock when it was going for $2 a share. I still think it's a bargain right now at it's current price.

The way things are going, there wont be any more 996 left out there that doesnt have a guardian or new IMS bearing installed. I dont have either installed in my engine. I change my own oil every 3000 miles. IMS to me stands for (I my self) inspect the filter for plastic or metal bits by cutting open the filter. I drive the **** out of my 99 C2 at between 2500 and 4000 revs. Have done almost 10000 in 11 months. Its not lost any oil or water and runs like a dream. I can see the point in an upgraded IMS bearing ( for those loosing sleep from the scare mongers) but can't see the point in the guardian. By the way I have an existing 35000 miles or 2 years left on an extended warranty on the car. If I see any crap during an oil change. They will know about it. Then if they dont instal a new bearing, I drive the hell out of it until it blows up and then they put a new engine in it. The warrenty cost me $1500 and I have had a built up gearbox installed already on the warranty at no cost to me.

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This is the way people should drive a Porsche, and its the proper mindset to have. Unfortunatelty, very few modern Porsche drivers do this or have this mindset. Your '99 C2 has a dual row bearing which means that you have effectively TWICE as much bearing load capability as someone that has a 2001 or later car with a single row bearing. If I was ever going to take a risk of doing nothing in regard to the IMS I'd make sure the car had a dual row bearing from the factory. I'd NEVER take this risk with a single row bearing that was used in all engines post 2001 as the bearing is 1/2 the size and will last 1/2 as long once failure begins. I will only add that it is Is possible to experience bearing failure that progresses from stage 1 clear through stage 4 and experience a failure all in a single oil service period. We have received a few failure calls from people who have experienced a failure and did the same inspection of their oil filter at the last Oil service. unfortunately most people still only change the oil in these engines once per year, so carrying out an inspection annually isn't going to offer much in the way of inspecting for signs of bearing failure. Once the degradation occurs the bearing can go through the failure stages very quickly and the time that each bearing takes to fail is variable as they are made in at least 4 different countries and seem to have variable quality. With the IMSG you are simply carrying out that same "inspection" of the engine's oil, but you are doing it continuously while the car is being driven. The "point" of the IMSG is to give those who can't afford an elective retrofit a lower cost, easy to install method of security that they can carry out the installation of themselves. With the cars continuing to fall on the price scale, the IMSG is a way to protect them and not spend 1/3 or more of the vehicle's value to do so. This is why the highest number of IMSG sales we have sold have gone into early Boxsters. Ironically enough these early 97-99 Boxsters have the dual row IMS bearing and are the least likely to experience a failure related to the IMS. These cars take advantage of the system to monitor the other ferromagnetic wear metals in the system to include timing chains as they are one of the weaker areas of the earliest engines. Timing chain failure took out the first M96 engine that I ever experienced internally. The people who REALLY need the IMSG are the owners of MY 06 and later cars and replacement engines as they can't do anything other than the IMSG to help protect their engines further. This is because the MY06 and newer IMS bearing is larger than the access port in the crankcase and this means it is physically impossible to extract and replace the bearing without complete engine disassembly. Unfortunately the dash of these cars isn't as conducive to switch integration as the early cars so the IMSG for the later cars has had to be greatly altered from the original design. I have just finished the "IMSG Jr." for these later cars and we installed the first one for a customer last week. It is a more simple system, doesn't offer as many features and doesn't seamlessly integrate with the interior like the standard IMSG units do. The good part is the system is so much simpler that it is roughly 1/2 the cost of the current system for the 97-04 models; however it only offers a warning light.

Can the IMSG Jr be installed in an M96/996 engine/car?

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Searching through the old posts on IMSG and didn't see an answer. Maybe that means all the 996 use the IMSG Sr? Thanks,

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Yes it can, but the install is not as seamless as with the Sr. unit. If you have an early car, just use a Sr. unit and take advantage of an easy, seamless install and a non-invasive installation process.

I installed the Guardian Jr. in my 996. Very happy with it... The install was pretty easy, and can be broken down into a few parts: Oil sump plate removal, cleaning & replacement. This is really just to ensure that you don't already have a bunch of magnetic debris sitting in your oil pain before you install the magnetic chip detector. Tip: Removing all the old gasket material and finding and correctly applying the correct sump sealer (Loctite 5900 or Drei-Bond) are the only semi-tricky parts. Replace standard oil pan plug with MCD oil pan plug . Easy, though I did have a issue with a tiny leak through the plug seal. Evidently due to some changes in my very late 996 oil pan. Jake made it right though... Tip: Torque spec on replacement oil plug is much lower than stock plug! Route / zip tie wiring from engine to dash . You are a bit on your own on this one... Cabs are different from coupes, etc. On my '04 Coupe, there were some rubber caps under the cover behind the rear seats that made it easy to poke some wires through. Then it was a matter of removing a few pieces of trim, sill covers, but mostly just poking/tucking the single wire behind existing trim. Tip : Just a single wire is run from the engine to the front. It already had a spade connector crimped on to the dashboard end. I cut off the connector to make it easier to feed the wire through a very small grommet hole, and just re-crimped the connector when I was doing the final hook up. Mount Guardian Jr. buzzer/flasher. The Guardian Jr. is much less expensive than the guardian, with the only real difference being it is a generic panel mount buzzer/flasher rather than a custom job that replaces one of the 996 oval switches. The buzzer/flasher is quite loud, and doesn't really have to be right in your face for you to see it or hear it. I mounted it in on of the side trim panels on the lower center console. Just drill a single hole and mount it up, basically in the drivers footwell. It's in my line of site, and there is no way you'll miss it if it goes off. Tip : Those side covers are relatively inexpensive. I check on things like that before I go modifying oem parts, as I always like to be able to go back to 100% stock. Tip2 : It looks like the buzzer/flasher would replace perfectly into the cigar lighter in the center dash if you were willing to give up your lighter. Final wiring. Bonus of my mounting location is that fused, switched power ( the only connection you need other than the wire that runs up from the chip detector and the ground lug at the engine side) is right there on the phone connector plug. Thoughts... I love the idea of having a MCD in the engine. Even with replacement bearings, there still is the potential of failure that would be caught by the Guardian Jr. MCD. It is fairly inexpensive, and gives me the piece of mind to wait until my transmission is down for other work (clutch, RMS, whatever) to replace my IMSB. Personally, I see no advantage in the Guardian. It is significantly more expensive, actually a bit harder to install (vs. my lower console side panel method), and performs the exact same job. With all the latest press/class action/hoo-ha over the IMSB, I can't believe more people haven't put in this simple and effective $220 engine saver.

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This is a great post, thanks for the tips.