IMS question
 

Anyone with impression of EPS external ims fix? Just had mine replaced w/ Pelican part. The bearing looked great at 83k miles.:)

Whose lifetime?

Lots of IMS fixes and lots of theories. Not much proof for most, just marketing claims.

I haven't seen any EPS installation stories posted on any of the 6 forums I follow. Nor any "I've got 50k miles on a EPS" stories. When I see many of those the claims might have some credibility to me.

The trouble with so many of the kits is the inventor installs them on maybe 2 cars and after a couple of months calls that tested. Recall the 3 Porsche IMS designs all passed 100k miles in their test mules and are hardly lifetime for some.

When a fix achieves 1,000+ engines at an average of 5 years and 50k miles we will start to know some more about it. Just as we learned about the Porsche designs over time.

From "what" i think i know......
The typical IMS failure is from a EZ driven car with our much "oil splash" getting back thought the hollow tube.
A car that is driven "spirited" is less lily to have problems .
Any device that supplies oil Pressure to the bearing "should" provide the cure.
That said if you are doing a clutch job do replace the bearing with a better one.

There are ways of lubing a bearing that are appropriate for different bearings. I'd ask the supplier of the bearing just how best to lube that bearing. Since some suppliers are quite vocal about not lubing bearings of certain designs/materials in certain ways, I'd investigate those reasonings too.

Just oiling the bearing you have could be a waste of time if the bearing is already pitted. And since you can't know that without removing the bearing, while you are there why not replace?

I find it odd that roller bearings aren't used in other places in the engines. And wouldn't a bearing with more surface area provide more inertia and friction thus slowing the engine?

Point by point:

1. OEM IMS bearing fail when their seals leak and oil mixes with grease which compromises lubrication.
2. Cars driven at low rpms incur higher loads on bearing assembles; single row bearings are especially susceptible to this failure mechanism
3. Unsealed bearings, which are splash oil lubricated alone, last a long time.
4. Agree completely

I find it odd that roller bearings aren't used in other places in the engines. And wouldn't a bearing with more surface area provide more inertia and friction thus slowing the engine?[/QUOTE]

Roller bearings are only used where shat deflections are very small as they don't tolerate
angular misalignment.
Rolling resistance ( friction)and inertia would be similar to ball bearings.

The rolling friction of roller bearings is twice that of ball bearings. That was written in the early vw manuals when they changed the front wheel bearings from ball bearings to roller bearings around 58 or 59. But in this application it is insignificant.
Isn't this roller bearing that vertex sells a 901 pinion bearing? N2205e?
I find it hard to believe that the chain tensile loading from opening the valves wouldn't be a linear increase with respect to rpm.