New paperweight - IMSB

Had my IMSBearing replaced on my '01 tiptronic. Turned out to be a double row. Work done by Porsche of North Houston, with the L&N Engineering bearing. Here are a few photos. It doesn't look bad, but I feel like the preventive maintenance was worth it. INTERESTING, indeed, the part is made in Japan! Wow, who would have thought that! The source of much consternation and trepidation was outsourced. Makes you wonder whether it was a nose thumbing by that tiny plant outside of Fukushima. Does anyone have a method to clean this to remove the last vestiges of oil? I'd like to use it for a paperweight, worth it's weight in gold.

Your bearing looks to have been in good shape -- you should pry off the cover and check the bearings inside. Still I prefer the piece of mind -- but its harder to make that call in a tip as the labor is not inconsequential. For Manuals -- its virtually free with clutch job. Mike

I did the same on my '00 Tip (also double-row). The labor was a killer and the bearing looked fine, but I've never regretted my decision to replace it. Replaced the non-leaking RMS with the latest and greatest version at the same time.

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I did the same and discovered the Japanese dual row bearing. Mine looked like yours, perfect after 40,000 miles with Japan stamped on the top.

I did my 6-speed at about 110 miles along with clutch replacement. Mine was a single row item made in Germany. Mine also looked pretty darn good for its age. I don't regret having it done. I think the hype over the subject may be exaggerated but, on the other hand, the cost to replace one of these engines is probably not.

Just had mine replaced on the 04 C2 - we did remove the seals from the OEM bearing and it looked perfect at 75K miles.

So there we have 6 posters who had bearings replaced and all saying that 'the one taken out was NOT TOO BAD.. None of them saying the truth "Nothing wrong with the old bearing" but thats just justifying their move. A lot of money to pay for a paper weight IMHO. Hey peace of mind is money well spent in this case. OR IS IT? I keep checking my old oil filters to gain the same peace of mind.

If you're curious, these are pretty easy to take apart. Put the outer race in a vice and the bearings will just make it by. Then you can inspect the bearing and races. ANY sign other than a mirror finish: fracture, pits, discoloration, then you can be glad you changed it out. Of course you can just clean it by pulling a seal and using acetone. Here's some pics of my bearing. I caught it just in the nick of time by inspecting the oil on changes. I change pretty frequently as the car is tracked. And like most others, didn't hear or feel anything other than the engine was tip top. All that glitters...

I had to send my original back to LN for the warranty to be active on the new one, or so I am told.

saying that the bearing "looks great" with the seals still in means nothing. As mentioned, any degradation in the ball bearings, any at all, is sign the bearing was on its way out. In addition, if you pop the seal and find no grease of any kind with just a bit of oil leaking out, the bearing was in what LN likes to call "stage 1 failure". My single row bearing "looked good" but there was no grease inside the bearing. With those failed seals in place, oil had to "make its way" into the bearing to provide lubrication to a bearing that was supposed to remain packed with grease and live in an environment free of oil that would wash the grease away. We all know how that turned out. Now, regardless of single or double row, you have a bearing without seals that were meant to operate in an environment with merely splash lubrication. Money well spent.

You got lucky.. You could have had the unit made in Poland, or the one made in France.

Dnitake, did you see anything in your oil filter before changing your bearing ? I mean all that glitter coming out of the bearing, did that make it to the oil filter ?

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Wait, so do we know how many different origin of manufacturers exists for the IMS, and out of those which ones made the dual vs the single row? It would be interesting to see if there is some correlation to IMS failures to a certain origin of manufacture. Or it could be possible that the rubber seals themselves were made in various places but the bearings and related parts themselves were all made from the same manufacturer? Hmmmmm......

>saying that the bearing "looks great" with the seals still in means nothing. If you can visually see any defect, or feel any hangup in rotation, it's not far from from failure. I use mine as a $1200 paperweight/conversation piece as well :-). Sealed bearings are NOT sealed. So the need to submerge this bearing, as I read it somewhere, and not switch to a proper bearing for this application must've been what we now know to be a MAJOR business trade-off (like the engineers didn't know). They must've had a boxcar full of them. Don't mean to get myself started, but you can bet the expected de-rated lifetime was outside the warranty period.

Remove the seals. I've always used the crazed slasher technique and attacked the seal with something sharp. Be careful you don't stab a finger or a hand. Anyhow I pried/pulled (with pliers) the seals out then used a non-residue cleaner (brake cleaner or some electronics cleaner) to remove all the grease/oil. You might have to do this several times as sometimes the bearing cage/spacer might be porous and retain some lube.

Yes, "we" do. Its part of our development and gathering of trend data. I touch on this in my book. We closely guard this information. Trend data continues to be gathered; however the units that fail completely and lead to catastrophic events are too destroyed to conclusively determine which source provided the bearing. We can only gather the data from the hundreds that have been caught during failure and by taking apart the thousands that have been returned to us and LN that were replaced electively. This is ongoing and always will be. Absolutely. Lots of information concerning these bearings has been posted over the years, but 2-3X more has never been divulged publicly.

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So we have to buy your book to find out the info I guess. "Hundreds" I believe but I'm having a hard time swallowing your "thousands" of returned IMS. 1k-2k range I can see but your post makes it sound like quite a bit more outside this range. Is there really more than 2k of returned IMS to date? Not expecting you to answer it and even if you did, I'm sure you'll have a lot of skeptics.

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Oh no. No more Porsche parts from France, please.

You shouldn't be too surprised your bearing was made in Japan, your transmission (manual tranny) was as well.

Last time I checked the enthusiast following fir these cars had not contributed any funds to our R&D program, so like a "free lunch", free info won't ever exist. The book is on the topic of the assembly of the M96 engine, but includes a few extra chapters, one of which shares IMSB info that has never been shared before. That section of the book will also be released as an E book, available as an individual offering. Keep in mind that to receive a warranty on the new bearing that the installer MUST return the old bearing to LN Engineering. To date well north of 7,000 bearings have been sold, and since everyone is so worried about a warranty more of the bearings have been returned than you'd believe. There are bins and bins full of them, so many that a spare room had to be purged just to store them. The majority are held at LN, so I do not have an exact count. Since the last time we purged a few years ago I already have more than 300 here. The skeptics come with the territory of not telling people just what they want to hear. It also comes from answering direct questions and being politically incorrect and somewhat insensitive to how people perceive the truth as we see it everyday. The people that don't believe this is a problem are only being unfair to themselves. Here are a few we pulled over the summer.. We have them logged into the system and now we just need to cut them open and gather the trend data from them Vs mileage and etc. Pardon the mess, I just dumped these out of a bin and took the picture :-)

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Fair enough Wow, that's a number I would've never expected since the bearing hasn't been out a very long time, relatively speaking. But fear does play a pivotal role so I guess it's not really 100% surprising. Just like the flu shot. It's amazing how much hype and marketing has made the flu shot manufacturers a bit richer.(not a slam to you but just tryng to make an analogy that fear can sell a lot of things)

We've been carrying out the IMSR since 2008, so its longer than people think. When customers started asking for these retrofits at the local level independent shops started asking their parts providers to carry them. At that point those big names started carrying them in bigger numbers and then started supplying them and advertising them, which got even more shops 'in the know". Today thats the driving force behind the numbers. Just like the retrofit it's self, REQUESTS lead to the development. When I started working with these engines there were no options. If the IMS bearing even STARTED to fail, there was no way to remove it and was no replacement bearing, or flange or extraction tools. Then many engines were trashed that could have been saved with just a retrofit today. No, a lot of it today is people thinking it is unfair to be a capitalist that attacks a problem (when no one else is willing to) and then benefit from that after busting *** to develop it. Lots of it is just because in the 21st century its common to just be a whiner and find something, anything to bitch about.

Yes I've heard all your marketing before in several posts so nothing new except to the newcomers that might've not heard your speech yet. The "Requests" are partially driven by fear and you have done a great job at it. There is nothing wrong with Capitalism and you have been great at marketing, developing, and researching your product and audience. And whether one decides to do the IMS retrofit or not, it's great that there is that option out there for the ones that do. It must be great for your business that Porsche has produced so many 996 and 997's.

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Thats the exact mindset that makes me want to never develop another item, never sell another dollars worth and just walk away. Its the reason why we are ending retail sales and no longer dealing directly with the public for anything other than a complete engine. Done with people.

To backup Jake, You have to admin that when someone like Jake Raby sees porsche engine blown up by the dozen each week. You can't expect him to have any other attitude than paranoid about the 996 engine. Sales tactics or not, there is no denying that a bunch of those engine are blowing up. And for cars that are babied most of the time, it is even more of a fact to consider. Personally I would not own one without extended warranty.

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what a douche. A 996 owner with fear of an IMSB failure are completely rational. While the overall percentage is likely low, the financial damage if you are one of the unlucky ones is huge. Jake has made it a point to provide the information, and from what I've seen he is factual, albeit a bit biased given that all he sees are broken cars every day. That said, a lot of 996 owners would rather stick fingers in their ears or cover their eyes and scream "la la la la la" than admit that there ARE legitimate issues with the M96/7 engines. Why you want to keep poking the bear on this I'm not sure. No one is forced to buy, but some people seem to see the value, for peace of mind or otherwise.

I've heard it all before in your other posts yet you can't just walk away. You always find yourself back in the same spot. Face it, you've got the patents, knowledge, and unique product that is one of the few if not only product like it in the marketplace. You've got the marketing skills clearly and you probably need to support your family or need money for something else. If you are going to have more of a distributor's model and let resellers deal with people, are you also not going to be posting here as well then since you don't want to deal with "people"? I don't really understand why you are being so defensive and maybe you are assuming some things or reading into things more. Oh well... The Jake legacy shall live on....

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All this has been hashed out several times now and yes maybe I do have a douche attitude but I'm entitled to that as well as a great percentage of others that share my views. I don't believe I have directly insulted you or Jake in any way. Here's the breakdown on how I see it just to clarify. - Jake is VERY knowledgable about the M series engines - He has contributed greatly to the Porsche community by offering a solution to a potential IMS failures - He has gone above and beyond that by not resting on his initial design but taking it further(we shall see what that is). - There is that potential artificial fear that some feel is generated by him - We have no conclusive proof on pinpointing exactly what makes the IMS fail(bad batch, manufacturing, different manufacturers, etc) and if it will fail in all engines. - In the mean time, it is a highly individual decision by each owner to elect to have this done or not. We shouldn't criticize owners for doing or not doing the procedure. - Fan boys will always come to Jakes defense regardless. - I've observed a bit of ego boost in his statements lately compared to when he first started posting about this subject which frankly makes hims sound a bit high and mighty.

I could retire tomorrow and owe nothing to anyone. I'd have a 30,000 square foot hobby shop for my own cars. I worked my *** off through my younger years, made the right decisions and learned about things that no one else was willing to even consider. I have always told myself that the first day I look at my wife and say "I am going to work" that will be the last day that we do business. For years I worked 18 hour days and have went as long as 10 days without leaving the shop property while working on crazy things that we love. Go to bed when the sun comes up, sleep for 3-4 hours at best and then do it all over again the next day, loving every minute of it. We do this work because we love the challenges, the problem solving and helping those who desperately need us; generally when no one else can help them. I just like to work on things, no matter what they are and honestly the more problematic and misunderstood they are, the more I love it. Marketing skills? They didn't teach us those in Special Ed.

Completely non-sequitur, but a book on DIY rebuilding of the motors is a great idea. As these cares are getting more and more into the DIY price range, I can see a ton of demand for such publication. Hell I'd bundle that with special tool sales / rental program.

I agree.. BUT even general shops can't find specs on the engine, because they have never been printed. What I have compiled is our own specs from taking apart engines that were brand new from Porsche and of course what we have experienced. The measurements and etc that are available are generally not even accurate. The book isn't about history, or anything other than engine assembly. It has two IMS Chapters and one "everything" chapter. And go absolutely crazy when someone doesn't return them, disrespects them with a hammer or calls ten thousand times to ask questions about using them. Been there, done that and will NEVER make that mistake again.

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Just stop. Please. Look back at where this initially informative thread started, and then consider where it is now. Now that you have added your little list, can we trust that you have had your say and will move on to other endeavors?

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I think it shows that your passion comes first and foremost for these cars and reason why you're at where you're at today. Also the reason why you will get respect from many people whether they agree with everything 100% or not, including me. I just don't think you need to get defensive or read into things more than necessary and also to sometimes just let your products speak for themselves. Didn't know about the book til recently, when is the expected release?

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These are things I've repeated in my other posts but somehow people that haven't seen them might be confused or assume I have some kind of mean streak or grudge against Jake when that isn't the fact at all. I just wanted to clarify myself so we can all move on.

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+1 What kind of an idiot critisizes freely given, state of the art information on a public forum designed to freely share this very information we seek?

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You are seeing it wrong or I'm not communicating my thoughts effectively. Rewind some posts back when it WAS on topic and things were very informational before all the drama. Jake told us that some of the IMS was made in Poland and France. I inquired if he knew what percentages and if there were any correlation on the failures to the origin of manufacture. He stated that information was private so how is that freely given info? However he's worked hard at gathering that data and I don't expect him to share it and I've said fair enough. If you wanna know, buy the book. Where the drama started was in my second part of that post where I found it hard to believe his "thousands" and wanted more clarification. He responded back with some numbers and it's up to me to choose whether I believe it or not. Somehow it's spiraled from there. I apologize for setting this post on a tangent and would like to get back to the original post about dead paper weight. I am confused on the owners that keep the IMS as dead paper weight. I thought Jake mentioned you need to return that for warranty to take place. Can someone clarify that for me?

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Trust me, more people complain about free information than anything else. Welcome to 2012, I just hope the Mayans were right. Thats not being defensive, its pure intensity. I am the most intense person that most will ever meet. I was raised in a way where life was real and men were men, they didn't take crap and was taught that the only way around a problem was straight through the damn middle of it. People today don't like that. 2013. Its done when its done, three years in it so far. Here is a page of the chapter I am working on today... You saw it here first. :-)

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I was once intense but then got into corporate world where I got reprimanded quite a bit and now I'm slowly being assimiliated into the corporate world with all the BS that goes on there. I'm jealous sometimes at individual business owner for being able to be "intense". The page you posted is page 1? so you plan on being finished by end of 2013?

I've never had a job where I didn't sign my own paycheck. I'd make a crappy employee. I am sometimes jealous of the person who works 9-5, has vacation pay, gets a bonus at the end of the year and can "turn off" the work when they clock out. This is page one of the E-Book that I am assembling as a separate offering from the full book, so those that only want the IMS info don't have to buy the whole book. I am more than 2/3 way finished with the book, but we need to debut the IMS Solution before the book since it is covered as well, so there isn't any hurry on the book until the Solution is in the hands of distributors.

Thanks for the book info. Now I understand the whole eBook vs regular book. My dad was an individual business owner so I can sympathize with the hours and responsibility that comes along with it. Try to alot some time though for your kids. They only grow up once. I had my grandfather act as my father most of the time when I was growing up because of it.

I only have one.. My Wife owns an accounting firm and four months out of the year she is barely human. I'd love to be able to turn this stuff off and just go home and enjoy it, but it never slows down and I gave up on doing that. Basically all I think about is engines, whether I am here or not, but thats the good part.. Dealing with the other BS is what sucks. Here is Ava, she'll be a year old on 12.2.12, she was born with Spinabifida, had surgery @ two days old and has been great every since. I don't spend enough time with her, which pisses me off.

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Well being a father myself, I really do hope you can get some time maybe later to do all the fun stuff with your daughter. At least what you're doing now should pay for her college tuition and I'm sure she'll have one kick @ss of a car when she turns 16. Jake, can you clarify if the old IMS has to be returned for warranty to take effect on the new IMS? I didn't quite get that.

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She'll pay for it herself, else she won't appreciate it. You guys must think this stuff is really lucrative, hell we barely make 10% on most items! Thats what happens with USA made products in low volumes for a niche market, even if they have a huge price tag. Which she will build herself, just like I did.. If not, she won't be driving. YES, look at your warranty paperwork from LN. The old bearing must be sent in to prove that the bearing that was replaced was not failing. Bearings that are replaced after a stage 3 failure will harm the replacement bearing due to collateral damage from foreign object debris contamination. Refer to your paperwork, it says it all. Here we do it a lot differently, everything is deemed experimental and we only guarantee the turn key engines that we create from scratch.

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Interesting so the people posting their IMS here that plan on keeping it for a paper weight will not have a warranty?

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Refer to the paperwork. This is LNs policy, not mine. If it were up to me it wouldn't even have a warranty. The warranty is not complete without returning te replaced bearing to LN where it is logged into the database. Read the warranty details.

Any consideration of a ceramic or ceramic hybrid bearing?

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The LN bearing is ceramic hybrid

The DIY guys don't need books to learn how to rebuild an engine. Pointers on some of the unique tricks and steps is all that one needs, the rest is more or less the same on all engines. No need for an entire book, just a few pages of instructions will do. The bearing in mine, with 200K ('99 with the dual row) looked fine. I removed the seal, washed it all out and inspected the internals. All looked good. Bought the car with a jumped timing chain so I have no idea what the original owner did, it was a one owner car but, whatever the old guy did (he was over 70), must have been the right thing.

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I emailed Charles Navarro from LNE and asked for mine back. I paid shipping. So that's how I got my expensive paperweight. Mine "looked good" but I didn't take it apart.

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Thanks for clarifying that.. That's an option too. The paperweights can be a lot more expensive.

Eh on the tool rental, and if you charge the full amount + profit margin up front, you won't run into problems. I've rented various audi tools (timing mostly) over the years without issue, I don't see why it would be any different for pcars. You'dessentially be selling the tools with an option to rent if the person isn't a moron.

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Then you'll end up being titled an insensitive, money hungry, capitalist.. I've had Porsche tool rental programs in the past, it lasted about a month. You sound experienced, the door is wide open, I want zero part of that. Too many finger pointing exercises for me. Of course if someone can't afford the tools, they generally can't afford the parts and its just going to be a compromised, blown up experience anyway.

I'd like to thank L&N Engineering for developing this improved IMSB. It is an improvement over the original part at a very fair price. While mine was apart, the dealership did identify several other issues which were fixed. They would have required pulling the engine as well, so it goes down as maintenance. I think I have another good 50,000 miles going forward. I overlooked the part about sending the old bearing to LNE. Oh well. In reality, warranty or not, if it winds up that the new bearing fails, the cost of the bearing is almost a non-issue. The labor costs to pull the engine and tip tranny make the part cost look like chump change. I know I have the dual bearing now. I'll put the guardian back on and have it monitoring my engine. My 996 has never run better (at least since I've owned it). And depending on which way the next four years of obamanomics go, at least I have a fast car to getaway if I have to. That area in GA around Flat 6 sounds pretty sweet!

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Thanks for the explanation. I wonder what he does or will do with the rest? Perhaps ship a few thousand in one big bow tie box to Porsche headquarters and invite all the automotive press along to be there for the reception?

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We have parties where we use cut off wheels to zip them all apart and see how bad they were... One day we will need every single one of these examples.

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It's not really a question of being able to afford the tools, it's just not a worthy investment if you only do it once. For example the stupid stuff you need to set timing on the S4 V8 runs about $500 bucks. If you're doing it once, that's a stupid expense.

How come a simple question about how to remove oil from a bearing so it could be used as a paper weight could turn into a full blown advertising and justification campaign by Flat 6 Innovations does not suprise me in the least. The door was ajar and the flat 6 foot shot in there and kept it open to advertise their products. Be it books or bearings or a load of bollux. Get back on the subject and lets move on ...

I know some people give Jake heck on here but I will read every self promoting post he does just so I can soak in every piece of advice he has to give just because of his obvious knowledge. Wether or not someone chooses to purchase his products and services is their business. I will continue to read everything he posts and learn from it no matter how much advertising he does. Thanks Jake, for taking time out of your busy schedule to post so that some of us can learn from your experience. Even if you think we are not following your advice, I for one, am learning from you.

So now its kiss **** time again.... Same old song...At least you do acknowlege that Jake does advertize when ever he gets a chance and 'good for him'.. He wouldnt be a good business man if he didn't advertize his products.. Shrewd is the operative word. If Jakes products are a good as his business sense then he is on a winner.

Burp.

There's a good number of Porsche aftermarket suppliers that provide a multitude of upgraded and more robust parts from suspension, to radiators to .... you name it. Flat 6 is the ONLY developer to design a replacement option for IMS - which is known to cause engine failures (the % will never be known). The Porsche community is not naive and there is no need to by hyper-critical of a developer that's manufactured a part that is more robust - and that he is rightfully proud to market. Vent your frustration towards Porsche for creating the IMS gremlin. BTW the 997 MK II and onwards eliminated the IMS..............

The first place I heard of an IMS explosion was at an indy shop where I took my 996 for a PPI. He told me they all eventually fail and the retrofit is the only way to save yourself from doom. I hedn't everheard of Rennlist or LN. I also spoke to a friend of a friend who is the service director of a very large Porsche dealership. I asked if the service history of my future car showed an IMSB retro-fit and was told that they only used original Porsche parts. I think it's possible that some of the indy shops have found a way to market these bearings through fear tactics. After a year of ownership and 8 months on my LN bearing, I can say that I no longer fear the meltdown and I enjoy my car every day. I'm not a good gambler. I think Jake has found a need and filled it. There's nothing wrong with selling a product. We live in a country whose economy is based on free enterprise. I sell cars for a living. Jake sells engineering. Where's the problem? I don't feel I have to defend my occupation and I don't see why anyone would question the motives of an enterprise like LN.

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Hi Jake, best of luck with your book, it looks great! FWIW I think you might have 'Carrera' spelled wrongly.

Off topic but had to say: Mark, your car is a beauty. A black Porsche looks awesome when its clean.

Alpine...I hear you. Of course the excerpt from Jake's book he posted had to feature the IMS. Regarding the pic of all those returned IMS bearings, how many people that see that photo assumes they are all failed bearings? If it makes you sleep better to upgrade your IMS bearing, by all means do it. Just realize the reason you did it was due to threads like these.

Thanks KrazyK. Yours looks great too. It's amazing how good this paint really is. My car is 11 years old and looks better than most of the new cars on our lot. Clean definately adds to it.

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wow, amazing how you know the reason why everybody replaced their imsb. I'd argue its more the threads in which a guy with a previously great condition 996 ends up with a roller worth $3k-$5k with the option to spend 16k on a crate motor. You want examples...there are quite a few

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This is what amazes me. You are so disgusted by the comments you get but just keep coming back. Now there are three possible reasons for this: 1)you are an idiot; 2)you can't stop yourself from constantly marketing the product or 3)you just want to help people. This comment tells me that it ain't #3 "Done with people." And I don't think you're an idiot. That only leaves....

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I insisted my installer return the bearing to me instead of discarding it. Did not know L&N Engineering offered a warranty. Can I still return the bearing to L&N and get the warranty?

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Exactly my point. "Threads like these" include those who post about their personal IMS disasters. Also if "quite a few" is the best quantification someone can make about the rate of these failures, then I will just keep rereading my post.

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ok, but fear mongering (or whatever people call jakes posts) and people posting their experiences of engine failures are distinct things. I'm not sure we'll ever be able to get a good idea about the percentage of M96s that retire due to IMSB failure. But quite a few is enough for me to realize this is far from an isolated incident.

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Fair enough!

I read Rennlist for two reasons. First, to learn as much as I can about my car through other owner's experiences, and secondly, for the sheer entertainment value in some of the postings. It is obvious that the IMSB is one of MANY issues that "could" affect my ownership experience. Prior to 2008, there was no way to replace the bearing without a total motor tear down. So LNE/FSI, for whatever reason, invests time and money and comes up up with a workable solution for replacing the IMSB. Now I, as an owner of a car with a known catastrophic failure potential of unknown scope, have a choice, where before there was none. Anybody see a down side yet? What I don't get is why people get so jacked out of shape when Jake posts his experiences here on Rennlist. Sure, he is marketing his product. Yes, there is some bias in his findings, but his experiences are real, and I, for one, want to hear everything he has to say. I'll decide in the end whether or not it has value to me. The last thing I want to see is a very experienced member and engine builder quit Rennlist and stop sharing his knowledge because a tiny percentage of the readers think his posts are scare tactics and bull****.

^^^ Well said Trapper!

What happened to getting back on topic? Any post with IMS or Blown Engine = A post from Jake which leads to : It's the same $hit, different post. Very predictable at the very least. I will contribute to this one last time though. I don't think anyone can disagree on the vast knowledge Jake has and brought to the Porsche community and his passion for Porsches which has earned respect from people for this aspect and/or him in general. Some people seem to have issues in the way his post conveys the marketing aspect of it which some term as fear tactics. To be fair and objective, Jake is a sponsor here and has created a great product and has every right to talk about it at anytime. Where the issue comes in for me and others is we all know he has a great product and why not let it speak for itself? There are quite a few people that will and have vouched and recommended his product(s) and services in quite a few post dealing with blown engines or IMS issues. Why not just offer up the technical side and leave some of the marketing out of it? Why not create a separate post to formally introduce a new product so the whole post can be centered around the new product(book and the new IMS for example) instead of injecting it in an existing post and eventually ending up where we're at now? Who's to say his marketing tactic/strategy is wrong or right? Who knows. He can do what he wishes however I'm just conveying what I feel and what others might feel. Other than that, I have no beef with Jake and really admire the fact that he runs a tight ship. Now only if Comcast and AT&T could run a tight ship like him.

Trapper and Alpine didnt you just repeat what I posted? So we are all **** kissers like he said? Even the Bentley Service Manual refers to the IMSB as a service item to be replaced by mileage / time. Just replace it when you do the clutch and be done with it. If your car has the craptronic auto, theres no hope for you anyway.

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Lol, far from it but I give credit where it's due and play fair, but I also speak my mind. I believe BruceP said it the most eloquently and effectively in a few sentences that I've been struggling to convey in a few paragraphs in another related post.

I dont know if I dare mention what I found inside my oil filter today after cutting it open after 4,000 miles at 62,000 on the clock. NOTHING

has anyone done a walk through on this replacement with some pics, I saw some stuff n the boxster but not the 996, ours is a manual trans too, not that I have to do this to mine, but I would like to see some pics of the install just to become familiar with it UPDATE, found one, on this list, not sure why it did not show up the first time I looked, caught the part about pinning at tdc, and removing the tensioners? is this because your replacing the IMS bearing? I wil buy a shop manual for this car eventually, especially if I have to replace the clutch and stuff, which I know will be sooner than later with it having 60k on it now,

Quotes source post: 10009416

Just Google IMS bearing replacement. There is plenty of info out there. I did that when looking info.

If you purchase the Bentley Publication 996 Manual you will find a very brief outline in the book on the IMSB replacement. If you are a registered customer there are other updates - teck tips and videos on their site. But here is their YouTube Video: You Tube