Finished the white boxster up this week with a new upgraded intermediate shaft bearing kit. The updated kit. Once the exhaust, subframe, and transaxle were out of the way, we could see the IMS bearing flange. The RMS was completely dry and only the IMS was leaking. Old bearing removed from the engine. New updated bearing and flange installed. Back together she goes!

996 IMS Upgrade

Starting tearing into the 996 project today to see what we were looking at. The first thing was to go after the intermediate shaft bearing which is the weak part of these motors. Then was the waterpump and a few other misc. items while the engine is out. I had to get the exhaust out of the way, so I pulled the headers/mufflers/cats (pulling cam covers later). Someone had upgraded the headers at some point (and mufflers) and replaced the …

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996 Engine Time

This happy camper was dropped off this afternoon for a little internal work. Many are likely aware of the Intermediate Shaft Bearing issues in the 986 and 996. This car has about 60k miles and is a 1999, so that little mileage spells disaster for the bearing typically. It has a lot of oil weeping here and there that I will take care of once I crack it open. The plan is to replace the standard maintenance items while it …

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Ooops, I said it, the dreaded IMS issue of the boxsters and 996’s.  This weekend we tackled upgrading the IMS bearing in a buddy’s 1999 996 C2.  The IMS issue is the main cause of failures on the engines found in the early boxsters and 996’s.  The early design was a dual row ball bearing, followed by the later design of a single row bearing.  Typically failures are seen on lower mileage cars that are driven sporadically.  The theory for …

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