Jabiru Engine mod

[DieselFan]

I could only find info about one trike. A Raven. Everyone was ripping off Jabiru and he came out to say what rubbish they were talking, needless to say it turned out bad for him as a couple hours thereafter he needed a new piston +-120 hours. So he went quiet.

The rest of the story is that Jabiru stopped making parts for his motor and it was a mission to persuade them otherwise. This was in the beginning of their motors and his number was 200 or something. So since then Jabiru has made a hang of alot more and sorted out the niggles I'm sure. Altho he does make some interesting statements about it's performance being less than a 582 on his config. The article is old I would guess around 2001 so I wonder how things have changed?

BTW Whats the price on a 2.2l?

[justin.schoeman]

The newer Jabiru motors are very reliable. Most well maintained ones make the TBO (2000 hours) without problems.

Price (new) for the 2.2l is around R75k (excl VAT).

They are, however not well suited to trikes:
1) They require a lot of cooling air, and attention needs to be paid to ducting and airflow.
2) They are direct drive, (relatively) high revving motors. This means they swing a small prop very fast, giving good speed, but relatively poor thrust at low speed. This makes them rather inefficient at the speeds that most trikes operate.

Stick them on the front end of a faster plane, and they are great motors.

-justin

[FAWGie]

2) They are direct drive, (relatively) high revving motors. This means they swing a small prop very fast, giving good speed, but relatively poor thrust at low speed. This makes them rather inefficient at the speeds that most trikes operate.-justin

Possibly you mean that the prop RPM is relatively high? The engine RPM is half that of the Rotax 912....

I recently did the test flights on a new skyranger fitted with the 2200 Jab motor (Latest model with hydraulic lifters) and when compared performance wize to the exact same aircraft fitted with a 582 motor, it's a HUGE difference.

Cruise speed (582 @ 6000rpm and Jabi 2200 @ 3000 rpm) materialised in a cruise speed of 65mph with the Rotax and 100 mph with the Jabiru motor. Climb performance was also significantly improved with the Jabiru motor. Cooling was excellent, even in the sustained climb....

The best part is the engine noise both inside and out - the Jabiru sounds like a real aeroplane....

My choice? I would go for the Jabiru motor anyday - very well refined technology that offers good performance for your money.....

I agree that they do require proper cooling and therefore probably not suited to pusher or trike configurations.....

[justin.schoeman]

Possibly you mean that the prop RPM is relatively high? The engine RPM is half that of the Rotax 912....

yup

Cruise speed (582 @ 6000rpm and Jabi 2200 @ 3000 rpm) materialised in a cruise speed of 65mph with the Rotax and 100 mph with the Jabiru motor. Climb performance was also significantly improved with the Jabiru motor. Cooling was excellent, even in the sustained climb....

You should have noticed a slight decrease in take-off performance though. This is what bites on the trikes, as the prop is really only starting to get efficient from 60mph+. Before that it is just thrashing the air to death.

I agree that they do require proper cooling and therefore probably not suited to pusher or trike configurations.....

They are used in plenty of pusher configurations - with proper ducting. Mainly faster 3-axis planes though.

Personally I much prefer the Jabi to the Rotax motor. Much simpler = much fewer things that can go wrong. Power is good. Weight is good. Just the slight loss in take-off performance to live with.

-justin