Jake Raby

We are always here to help.. Jud can get you some of our Flat 6 coils out tomorrow ?

So you purchased an LN bearing and installed it, you then experienced an engine failure and extracted the LN bearing from the failed engine, then fitted it to another engine?

Then the car arrives here with the engine disassembled in the trunk. We call that a "trunk job". If it wasn't for all the support that people demand the IMS Solution would have been on the market years ago and my book would already be in people's tool boxes with dirty finger prints all over the pages. Instead, its just now getting finished.

Perhaps you'd like to spend your personal time dealing with DIY install issues? The latest situation where the IMSR bearing was described as "failing during installation" was the final straw in the decision to only sell these units to shops, because the bearing did not fail and the installer didn't know enough about the bearing, or the kit to realize this. Onlookers do not know this, all they see is "IMS" and "failure" and then the snowball starts. Dharn55, I remember taking time from my day to help you, even though your car was never sent to me. I did not have your components in hand and the engine was not in my care and control, so I defaulted with my recommendations to "NO" to remain neutral. We were the very first group to ever deal with cracked cylinder heads with these engines and the crack that your head experienced had proven to have a recurrence possibility after being repaired, so we still default NOT to carry out that particular repair. You have had good luck, so someone did something right, or you have had good luck, or both. Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement. This is just another classic example of why I am very leery about helping people and why unless a car or engine is put into my care and control I will not offer any recommendations, opinions or comments. I have been offering this for several years now. It also does not work because people complain about paid support and expect it for free because they feel it should have been provided when the product was sold and rolled into the cost of the kit. When someone makes a mistake and they compromise their valve timing, they cannot rectify the situation without the use of specialized tools. This further pisses them off and they never blame themselves; they always blame us and expect someone to ship them tools over night and for free and then sit on the phone with them for hours while they try to solve the issue. I didn't stop with the IMSB kits in regard to selling to DIY'rs. I closed my entire online store and we are in the process of taking it all off line this week. Hell, years ago I told Charles that these units should not have been sold to anyone other than trained shops and that we should have patented both the extraction tool and the retrofit procedures. He resisted and it has taken 5 years for enough people to prove that my mindset was correct. Nothing is perfect; but everything is expected to be. Don't be pissed at us, police yourselves and pull your peers aside and lock their asses on. They are the ones that caused the problems and you are suffering from it. Another consideration is the insurance that we have to carry and how particular the companies have become about DIY installed components. A few years ago I was forced to cancel my engine kit program because the insurance company stated that they'd cancel my policy if these products continued to be sold. No one else was willing to accept the policy, either.

No, the system is designed to have the oil serviced at 5K miles and no more. Ensure the shop does not over tighten the MCD sensor and all will be well. Its for the guys that complained because they wanted an alarm so loud that it would deafen them when it went off, scare the pants off them and cause them to lose control of the car. The alarm is loud enough, but not extreme enough to cause the driver to become alarmed. Warranty is 1 year. Life is unknown, its a solid state system, nothing to fail other than a switch, but the switch is a factory OEM Porsche unit. The device monitors EVERY ferromagnetic component within the engine, not just the IMS. With lifters and cams failing like crazy the IMSG makes sense to have no matter what. All of the questions you have asked here are directly addressed in this FAQ on our website. Please read them. http://www.rabyenginedevelopment.com/IMS_GUARDIAN.html As for the cost, the only thing we can say is the retail cost of the IMSG is 389.95, everything else cost wise is up to the installer. The choice of installer is yours, I don't really make recommendations.

Tony Callas of Callas Rennsport is local to you. He has some units in stock and is very familiar with the system. He and I instruct M96 engine classes together, so he is super familiar with all our products, to include the IMSG. That said, we charge two hours here to install the system. The average is a 4 hour charge for most Porsche shops, and if it takes longer than that dispute the charges. One dealership charged 8 hours, which is ridiculous. Tony is your man in that area.

This week I am instructing another of my M96 101 engine rebuild schools.. During a break in class on Thursday I passed the IMS Guardian sensor around the classroom and no one knew what it was or how it could possibly work. When I used two sentences to explain it their eyes lit up and jaws dropped. Partly due to how simple it is and also because of how logical it is. Then came the congratulations.. All the patents are filed and a provisional has been issued, trademarks are registered as of last week. Due to the USPTO it will take the better oart of the next year to receive the full patent. We have been assembling units at our facility non stop and will soon be filling the 376 pre orders that we have (as soon as Porsche sends us every seat heater switch in the world, that's all we lack)

The IMS Guardian has been completely described in the 2011 volume of Excellence Magazine in the Tech Forum. Most of you will have this publication in the coming week. Think what you want about the "sky is falling", but come answer my phones for a week and you will see what we experience on a daily basis.

Pop the belt off and see if it goes away.. If so its a sub-system. If not, its internal. I can't tell much from the video, but I'd bet sub-system.

The best part is you are less than 20 miles from our facility.. When you arrive here you'll see license plates from all over the country, at the present that even includes cars from California and Oregon! Give us a call to set up a time for a tour, the end of next week would be great and I hope this beautiful weather holds up!

Great. Just send us an email when you need information.

Absolutely.. We have been fielding calls all day today. The IM portion of the site is marginbal at best and constantly gives us issues, I apologize for the inconvenience. This is spring, our busiest time of year and this year I decided to stop retail sales while we concentrated on meeting deadlines for track events.. This time of year I go 14 weekends in a row with a commitment to some sort of event. We have more business than we can satisfy, which is a very good thing with this economy.. All that on top of adding another manufacturing facility to our property has been too much along with the constant R&D that we are doing. During this our main cfocus has been large projects, engine builds and IMS procedures with less focus on the sales of our individual components The absolute best way to reach us is via email. info@flat6innovations.com is the correct address. There are times when the most important thing to us is the engine or project thats in front of us.. in those instances the phone is left to ring, I owe that to my purchaser.

More than likely if the fit was tight enough to have caused the extraction issues the new bearing would have been impossible to fit. One thousandth of an inch separates success from failure in this game. Glad to hear you finally removed the old bearing, your difficulty has to be the worst to date... Heck thats not bad considering this time last year the general consensus was this bearing was impossible to replace.

Based on the position that your bearing is in as pictured I'd say the bearing puller was not centered over the IMS correctly during the procedure. This created an issue where the bearing contacted the puller during extraction, creating a situation where the bearing could not move and something had to break. This would also explain why the Kukko internal extractor also broke. With that pic I can see that the bearing has already been extracted past the point where the internal snap ring is compromised, meaning that there should be nothing else locking the bearing in place, except maybe contact with the puller body due to being improperly centered. From this point the bearing should extract very easily. Some bearings are more difficult to remove than others, I've done the procedure over 100 times since the pullers and procedures we have now were developed and I have had 3 bearings that gave me a difficult time, two of which were due to my own inability to properly center the bearing and the puller... Once I remedied that situation they extracted like all the others. FYI- I've never broken a center stud during extraction, not even with the most securely locked dual row bearings. I have broken DOZENS of Kukko internal extractors when doing this, which is the reason why I developed the technique of pulling from the center stud, then that was shared with LN when we teamed up to make the current pulling tool. You'll need another Kukko puller and this time make absolute sure that the body of the IMS bearing will be totally centered with the bore of the IMS bearing puller, any contact is bad as it loads the bearing sideways into the IMS tube, increasing difficulty. If the bearings has some way become loaded sideways into the IMS tube you could have some serious difficulty heading your way. BTW_ Loosening case bolts will DO NOTHING to assist with this procedure. Look carefully and you'll se that the bearing is being extracted from the IMS tube, not the crankcase!! The bearing just so happens to pass through the bore in the case during extraction. Leave those case bolts intact, don't touch them.