Jabiru 5100 in Daytona Beach, FL

[Greg Reid]

Hi all. I'm building an all-carbon-fiber low-wing prototype in Daytona Beach, FL, USA. It's in the "Vision" two-place aircraft family (same designer, Steve Rahm), but biggie-sized to 4-place. The airframe is pretty much complete (well 90%, with 90% to go), and I'm just starting into the FWF work.

 

I purchased a Jabiru 5100 (5.1L flat-8) in 2003 (!!!) and will be rebuilding and improving it before installing into the aircraft. The improvements will include the Rotec Liquid Cooled Heads, Rotec TBI, Electoair ignition, dual alternator, and a fair number of internal tweaks -- mostly driven from information gleaned in the JabiruEngines forum on Yahoo Groups.

 

I just found about this forum through JabiruEngines -- specifically, the thread dealing with the stronger rolled through-bolts, so decided to register and follow along.

 

Greg Reid

 

 

[FlyingVizsla]

Welcome Greg,

 

It's the wee hours of the morning in Australia now, but I can bet there will be more Aussies welcoming you when they start their day in about 6 hours time.

 

My husband built a RANS S7 and that last 10% really does take 90% of the time. Now its my turn - I am about to start some major work on my aircraft. Do you have any assistance with the build? Or are you on a steep learning curve. There's plenty about the Jab engines and quite a few builders on here. You'll love it.

 

Enjoy your time here!

 

Sue

 

 

[Greg Reid]

Do you have any assistance with the build? Or are you on a steep learning curve. There's plenty about the Jab engines and quite a few builders on here. You'll love it.

Thanks for the warm welcome. I had assistance (from Steve, the designer) in the early days as we figured stuff out, but have been on my own for the past several years. The learning curve for the airframe is far behind me ... I feel quite comfortable and confident in the work.

 

I've rebuilt several motorcycle and auto engines and am pretty good with a wrench and hammer so don't anticipate TOO much learning curve for the engine work. But I'll have to be very meticulous -- starting with a very thorough hangar cleanup! -- before opening it up. It's my project for January-February weekends (and probably longer). It's a brand new 5100 still in the crate, but it's been sitting soooo long that I really need to do a full inspection and rebuild (e.g. re-honing the cylinder bores) before starting it. While it's open, I'll incorporate many of the suggestions for improvement that I've read in the JabiruEngines group ... and now HERE too.

 

I leave tomorrow for three weeks' vacation in China (visiting my youngest son, who's been teaching ESL in Nanjing) for Xmas; will catch up on posts when I return Jan 9th.

 

Greg

 

P.S. Curious that the name of the LCH and TBI manufacturer has been asterisk'd out in my original append. I guess that there's a dictionary of "bad words" to hide, but don't understand why this is done for manufacturer names. Worried about spam? Also curious that my typo in the name of the ignition manufacturer made it through. (It's Electroair, not Electoair.) Now let's see if that proper spelling gets asterisk'd out. ;-)

 

 

[Studentbiggles]

Aboard Greg, enjoy your build, you'll get lots of help and advice here on the forums.

 

Daytona Beach, FL.................."Noice" part of thw world you fly from

 

Fly and Keep safe...................................Alley

 

 

[dazza 38]

Greg.There are alot of guys here that know Jabiru engines inside and out.

[hihosland]

Welcome Greg,

 

you are not based at Spruce Creek by any chance?

 

i have some friends there and remember with great fondness the hospitality extended to an Aussie aviator by USA pilots/owners.

 

seasonal greetings

 

to you and yours

 

David

 

 

[JabSP6]

Welcome Greg

 

It will be good to see how well the 5100 jab motor performs once you have done all the improvements. The hardest thing will be to try and get reasonably even EGT's across the 8 cylinders. Also make sure you balance the motor before you reassemble it. I found the crank with Prop flange and flywheel attached to be a fair way out at 3000rpm. Also balance the pistons and rods. Made a huge difference to the smoothness of my engine.

 

You can PM me if you wish for a whole list of things that might be worth looking at before you complete the rebuild.

 

Agian all the best with you build and keep us imformed of your progress.

 

Some progress pictures would be great of both the plane and motor build.

 

Merry Christmas

 

Andrew (JabSP6)

 

 

[Guest hamm]

liquid cooled heads I sure would like to know more about them:bomb:

 

 

[Jabiru Phil]

Hi Greg

 

Welcome to the forums and good luck with your project

 

I feel that Admin should give you an answer to your query about the cencoring of xxx and xxx

 

there was some animosity I believe due to breaking of forum rules hence the ban

 

Phil

 

 

[fly_tornado]

I agree, pictures would be good!

 

 

[facthunter]

If the motor hasn't been run, It should keep OK for a while. If you want to dismantle and "blueprint " it . Why not?. If you go for water cooled heads you will still have to have good directed airflow over the steel cylinders as steel is not a very good conductor of heat. The Rotax engines have an aluminium cylinder with a hard "nikasil " coating, so don't have this problem, nor do they rust when not used, (as the steel cylinders do).

 

The hone pattern on the Jabiru is a very fine finish and the cylinder is not hardened. Nev

 

 

[Yenn]

I am not sure if the pistons and rings are the same as the 4 and 6 cylinder Jabs, but if they are I would recommend that you don't use the original jab rings. Better ones are GM from memory used in Pontiac.