Looking for Mechanic to replace IMS bearing (Florida)

[PILFILR]

I am looking for a reasonably priced Porsche Specialist to perform the IMS bearing upgrade on my 2003 996 C2/Tiptronic with 15,000. Someone in the Melbourne to West Palm Beach area. Anybody have an expert in mind? Let me know. Thanks!

Thanks for all the great help I get from this forum!! :renntech:

[JFP in PA]

I am looking for a reasonably priced Porsche Specialist to perform the IMS bearing upgrade on my 2003 996 C2/Tiptronic with 15,000. Someone in the Melbourne to West Palm Beach area. Anybody have an expert in mind? Let me know. Thanks!

Thanks for all the great help I get from this forum!! :renntech:

Why not contact Jake Raby at FlatSix and find out who in your area has taken his training course on how to do the upgrade.................

[ericinboca]

I am looking for a reasonably priced Porsche Specialist to perform the IMS bearing upgrade on my 2003 996 C2/Tiptronic with 15,000. Someone in the Melbourne to West Palm Beach area. Anybody have an expert in mind? Let me know. Thanks!

Thanks for all the great help I get from this forum!! :renntech:

Maybe too far south for you, but I recommend:

* KMW Motorsports in Boca Raton (Kevin)

* Gulf Performance in Pompano Beach (Vinnie)

Both of these are outstanding. Likely neither have done the retrofit, but I would not hesitate with either of them.

[magcuda]

Seth @ Technical Dimensions in Jax, if that is not too far north

[70Sixter]

Why not contact Jake Raby at FlatSix and find out who in your area has taken his training course on how to do the upgrade

+1

http://flat6innovations.com/

[PILFILR]

Why not contact Jake Raby at FlatSix and find out who in your area has taken his training course on how to do the upgrade

+1

http://flat6innovations.com/

Thanks for the help. Jake told me he could talk any technician through it... but, had nobody in mind in my area.

My local Porsche dealer is really trying to talk me out of it. It seems their dealership has only seen 2 IMS bearings fail in their history and are concerned about inducing more problems from trying LN's extraction method. :huh:

[tanny02996]

For what it is worth, I recently went through this same decision process when I bought my 2002 C4 Cab. I worked with a very reputable Porsche specialist who has performed the LN IMS upgrade. With his advice, we decided to inspect the bearing and if it showed no signs of wear, we would not replace it. Upon inspection, he felt it did not show meaningful wear and therefore, did not require replacement. He did however, remove the IMS bearing outer seal in order to improve oil flow around the bearing and updated the IMS cover. His ultimate counsel to me was to change the oil fairly frequently (every 5k miles or at least annually) as he felt that long oil change intervals were a major contributor (if not the leading factor) to IMS failures. One thing to note though, if you do inspect or change the IMS bearing, there is a reasonable liklihood that you will also need to reset your cam timing, which is not trivial - most mechanics will remove the engine for this (you can do the math...). Good luck with your decision.

Edited December 30, 2009 by tanny02996

[txhokie4life]

For what it is worth, I recently went through this same decision process when I bought my 2002 C4 Cab. I worked with a very reputable Porsche specialist who has performed the LN IMS upgrade. With his advice, we decided to inspect the bearing and if it showed no signs of wear, we would not replace it. Upon inspection, he felt it did not show meaningful wear and therefore, did not require replacement. He did however, remove the IMS bearing outer seal in order to improve oil flow around the bearing and updated the IMS cover. His ultimate counsel to me was to change the oil fairly frequently (every 5k miles or at least annually) as he felt that long oil change intervals were a major contributor (if not the leading factor) to IMS failures. One thing to note though, if you do inspect or change the IMS bearing, there is a reasonable liklihood that you will also need to reset your cam timing, which is not trivial - most mechanics will remove the engine for this (you can do the math...). Good luck with your decision.

Resetting timing can be done with the engine in.

Is there a concern with allowing the oil to interface with the bearings -- as if the oil gets inside of the bearing housing, the grease

will be removed and you will have a failure on your hands.

mike