mikefocke

Do some reading here .... it will give you an idea of the complexity of the systems you are dealing with, some pictures, flow charts, etc. My similar problem was never really resolved but I do know the mechanic inspected and tightened all fittings and the problem was gone for 5 years. Even he wasn't sure he had found the problem and I left his shop with the admonition to come back if it happens again. But as JFP has said, my problem cause could be totally different than yours yet for the same codes.

Only addition I would make is Hartech in the UK also uses the no seal method. I don't think we have enough samples of anything running in enough cars under enough conditions with enough mileage and sufficient data gathering to be able to tell what bearing is "better" or how long they will last and maybe by the time we have that info we won't care. All we know is the originals with the original lube method did have a high rate of early failures in some model years. I think all we can know is how many of what kind have been installed to date and what their sellers are willing to tell us. So far only the LNs are out in significant numbers and lengths and only LN has been upfront in telling us results. As to ball versus other types of bearings, materials, oiling vs lubing method, just filtered versus crankcase versus greese ... I think all we can do is listen to the reasonings they were selected and see if the reasons seem to make sense. The only thing that seems obvious to me is to not do what is already known to fail at relatively high rates. Another trend we are seeing is towards professional installation as opposed to DIY. You are predisposed to take the risk because you want to experiment.

The wise man knows what he can do, what he can learn to do and what he is better off paying the professional to do. I've been following the IMS issue on 8 Boxster forums, 3 continents, daily for over 5 years and publishing web pages on it, talking to all sides and challenging every provider to try to ascertain the facts particularly in the area of testing and thus probable long term reliability. Yea, I was rather pointedly challenging Jake and Charles, Casper, Wayne, etc on-line and by private exchanges. I published comparison charts that were vetted and listed every supplier I could find here. Yes, I've seen lots of failed attempts and postings from some who should never have attempted an IMS replaceemnt in the first place. Are some DIY'ers successful, undoubetedly. It's the ones who don't have a clue that can't read directions, who ignore important steps that get in trouble. I've seen JFP and others try to help...frustrating. If I'm paying that much for something, I want one with good instructions, good support, good reputation, from an outfit that is liable to be around, and which comes complete. I don't want to be piecemieling a kit together myself or trying to fabricate tools, that is why I'd only be willing to pay for a complete solution with tools, well developed proceedures that have gone through multiple revisions and incorporate lessons learned, installer training and support, etc. And those things cost money to develop and support. I don't expect something for nothing. I've been the manager with responsibilty for a low volume product both production and support and I understand the pricing and the time demands issues involved in putting out a product to a first time user. I'd rather discount to someone doing his 20th than sell one at full price to the first time user. You lose your shirt and your reputation on the first timer. I've said from the begining that I want the heart doctor who has been doing these for years to be doing mine, not some intern. (When I had a serious health issue, I chose someone with records of the last 12k proceedures his group had done and who required a year of specialized training in just one simple proceedure before letting a doctor loose on a patient unsupervised. Some were doing the same proceedure after a weekend seminar.) Likewise messing around with my engine internals. I've had an engine let loose at speed, something I now try to avoid lest I be in front of an 18 wheeler at the time it hapepns. And in the end, your car, your money, your risk, your choice. Good luck in whatever you decide.

Articles with pictures on the subject of tops authored by Maurice, the expert, here

If the problem turns out to follow the sensor, look to using the Bosch part with pigtail attached at the factory which is the appropriate length for the problem sensor. My '01S passenger side front sensor got tired around 57k miles. About a year later, just for fun, I replaced the other front sensor. Seems those are the most common to fail so swap the fronts first from side to side as JFP suggests and see (hope) if the problem code shifts. A table of cross-referenced O2 sensor part numbers is here.

To each his own. Your preferences are right for you.

I'll assume you had a -124 in the car originally. You should be able to tell from the VIN number or by looking at the old part. Then you thought they put in a -125-0 or -125-1. The ECU programs itself after a short period of running time and begins then using the learned paramaters rather than a set of baseline paramaters. If the MAF is then giving it different values from the ones it expects because the MAF is not the type it is expecting, the ECU can get all confused. Which explains the first 50-70 miles good as it is running on a basic program, not trying to use the learned paramaters because it is still learning. Once it thinks it has learned, chaos. As Loren inplied above, a ECU flash mismatch with the MAF is a suspect. http://sites.google.com/site/mikefocke2/checkenginelightcausedbymassairflowsensor has a table of the Bosch part numbers and the Porsche part numbers which should allow you to remove the MAF you have now and see what you have. Once you know that, then you can determine the revision of the ECU flash you will need to have. If you find out anything different than is in the table at the end of the web page cited above, please send me a PM and let me know.

Waiting is tough, isn't it? Hopefully it is not oil but transmission fluid and a trans is an easy thing to source. Consider doing the IMS while they have the trans out if it turns out to be that. At least you'll have a distraction tonight.

Of course, there is the lingering question of what caused the C8 fuse to blow in the first place. Fuses aren't supposed to blow unless excess amps go through them. And they are supposed to be sized so that normal operation doesn't blow them. So something abnormal lurks.

Part of either the P63 or P64 option packages in a 2001 and there weren't a lot of changes between 2000 and 2001.

And the part price to the installer has now been posted on a rather sparse web page at http://www.imsretrofit.com/ims-solution/ And the other pages are rather emphatic about discouraging DIYers for even the original LN kits. They really want to drive owners to experienced installers so they can concentrate on developing new products for us. On that site is also the first description of the guardian Jr I've seen.

The initial customer installs were done on Jake's highly modified engines (so there have been some running around in the real world for months) and the next stage is to allow a few trained and trusted shops to do the installs but not to let DIYers at them for at least a little while. The parts are much more expensive than LNs current kit parts. Jake has asked that we not contact with him about this part until the official publication of details thru the press. He wants to do the roll-out right and doensn't have time for phone calls and emails too.

As teaser comments and then pictures with descriptions have been (in the last 2 weeks) posted by Jake ... Jake said the Solution will be described in a Porsche publication next month. And asks that you not try to contact him about the product until that time. If he and Charles are to do the launch right, they can't be answering phone calls and emails. He has also said if you don't intend to keep the car 'almost forever' (my words, not his...I forget the term he used), use the current LN parts. Big difference in price and availability to the DIY community too. Those who have been getting the Solution (yes there are other than his to-Canada-and-back test car running around with the Solution in them) have been, to use his description, spending more on his engines than just replacing the car or engine would cost because they love their cars (and may have personalized or otherwise improved their cars already). I have no idea why Casper faded from the online scene. About 6 months ago I asked them for info about their bearing for inclusion in a comparison article and heard nothing from them. There have been others who attempted to develop and market a part or kit, but they too seem to have faded from the scene for reasons JFP has suggested. I have often commented, in response to those who complained about the cost of the original LN kit, about the production cost of a part like this being only the tip of the iceberg. Having done it myself, my production costs were about 1/10th of the total product life cycle costs when including development, certification, testing, documentation and installation and user support. If you price only based on production costs, you go out of business rather quickly because there is no profit.

This thread just died. I have tried to summarize the current status of IMS replacement possibilities here. Hartech in the UK is doing them and I've heard of the LN also being used over there. Sometime soon there may be something different than currently available though when it will ship to installers other than by the US manufacturer I don't really know yet.

Good news. Thanks for the update.

It is either going to be a 5 minute job in which case he will get grief for charging you some flat rate or an absolute bear where he will lose his shirt. Mechanics make money doing a flat rate job and doing it faster/better. Yours is a guaranteed labor intensive risky job where no mechanic will want to take it on because the probability of his beating the flat rate time alloted for r&r of a water pump is minimal. Most mechanics want to do the whole job from start to finish, not patch up somebody else's half done problem. Just as most mechanics don't want to use parts you brought in. They figure if they are taking responsibility, they want to source the part where they can get a new one from their normal local same-day supplier if it goes bad, not have a lift tied up while the problem part goes back through the owner and then to the internet source that originally may have supplied the bad/wrong part. This is part of the reason I divided my car maintenance tasks into those I can do with no risk (maybe have to buy a tool); those I could do and don't want to; and those that I have neither the tools nor expertise nor appetite for risk to take on. I farmed out the latter two categories to the best P-car mechanic I could find. Some could say I lost out on learning oppertunities. I'd respond my Boxsters were super reliable and very cheap to maintain. And when I didn't have such a mechanic I could trust, I sold em.

There are transplants from 996s and there are total rebuilds with new and supposedly improved parts that can go bigger in displacement. But the cost of the latter is probably more than selling yours and buying a newer car. Though it might be better. Options here.

There is a list or wrecking yards here and you only want to buy from the most reputable sources. But the horn issue is commonly reported and the "grommets" fix the usual solution reported.

Glad you have it sorted out and the cost is merely a new battery. Batterys fail on a bell curve, just like most other parts, some sooner and some later and most in the middle. Nothing special about the Moll battery Porsche bought and perhaps labeled but surely marked up.

Would the Merc's battery fit in the P-car? A several day trial and if it runs down too you know it isn't the battery (as both would have to be bad).

Listen to JFP, he runs a P-car shop. He knows. What it comes down to is battery or alternator or connections. A simple test is the load test on the battery after an external charge. If it passes, then it isn't getting charged sufficiently by the car's charging system (alternator/regulator). If it fails, then QED. Here is the sort of device that does the load test. JFP pointed me to one several years ago. If the regulator is the culprit, it is a Bosch and commonly used on lots of German brands (VW, Benz, etc) so is widely available. Bosch F 00M 145 350 And the sagas I read say the replacement is trivial, it is getting the alternator in and out (behind the panel behind the seats) that is a bear.

It takes about an hour for the drain on the battery to reach its low point. There is a table here that shows the progression from about a 900/1000s AMP draw down to 30/1000s for the early 986s. JFP may well have a more accurate figure for later years but notice the progression in the table as sensors and security systems go into deep standby mode where they check less often. Is 13.8 really low? I've seen other posts which cite 14.4 but more often or not the posts say that 13.8 is about right. At what RPM are you testing? Of interest is the voltage after 4 hours. Fully charge it, disconnect it and let it sit. Then test it. Lets see if it exceeds 12 volts then with no draw. You don't say how old the battery is or if you have ever done any maintenance on it. Given where your profile says you live ... the heat can be as tough on a battery as cold. If the battery is one that has any possibility of being opened to examine the acid/water level I'd look there first and use distilled water to fill it if low. And I'd clean the terminals and the clamps and tighten them down. I'd do the load test and the charging voltage test which require access to a special tool (about $100 US) but any mechanics shop should have one, and any place that sells batteries would too, I'd think. My bet is the battery is bad. You don't need a special Porsche-branded one. In the US there are dozens that work just fine. Just pay attention to the size and the CCA ratings. You may lose the setttings on the '03's windows when you swap the battery but the owner's manual has an easy no tools proceedure you can do to re-establish them. You have a MOST Radio so no need for radio codes. Good luck.

One reason you maybe aren't getting a lot of answers is this is the convertible top section (sub forum) of the forum. Cyl 1,2,3 are all on the AOS side of the engine. Could you have done anything that got them disconnected while you were doing the AOS. I'm assuming here you weren't getting those codes before. Plugs, Wires, Coil Packs

Yes the wind deflector and headrest inserts are stock and so the insurance company or wreckers are entitled to them. You could have CDs in the car too, that is one thing I couldn't get out of mine for some reason. Go over every storage comparment, under and behind the seats, etc. Take all your personal stuff.

And of course Maurice can give you instructions via the same web site for replacing the total canvas on the '97 frame with an aftermarket canvas with a glass window...smaller and a bit of a PITA to get access to the engine afterwards but clear and can have defroster in the glass.