As you would imagine, the IMS Retrofit kit went through many iterations during development, including forced oiling of the ball bearing prior to switching to a ceramic ball for it’s performance in environments with poor lubrication.
We did develop a version that utilized a cylindrical roller bearing with thrust ring, but it never made it from testing to production for the primary reason that Porsche chose a ball bearing originally, not a roller. When SSF Imported Auto Parts approached us with a request for a roller bearing IMS to meet customer demands as all other cylindrical roller bearing kits offered did not meet their requirements, the RND RS Roller IMS Retrofit was born!
- A deep groove ball bearing as currently used in the IMS Retrofit can take up to 50% of the dynamic load in thrust.
- A traditional cylindrical roller bearing with thrust control can only take up to 10% of the dynamic load in thrust.
- The factory single row 6204 bearing a dynamic load capacity of 2900# with thrust max load rating of 1450#
- The NJ or NU204 cylindrical bearing has a dynamic load capacity of 3750# with thrust max load rating of 375#
- The custom dual row ceramic hybrid bearings used in both the Single Row Pro and Classic Dual Row IMS Retrofit has a dynamic load capacity of 4000# w/ Thrust or 2000#.
Although the cylindrical bearing has 29% higher load capacity, in thrust it has only 26% of the capacity of the deep groove 6204 bearing. The special roller bearing supplied exclusively by RND Engines to SSF have integrated thrust control in both directions and 5800# dynamic load capacity with thrust 580#, making it the strongest roller bearing IMS replacement available.
Even better, no modifications are required for additional forced lubrication unlike other ball or roller bearing IMS replacements.