Jabiru Engine 2200 Mechanical Problem Reporting

[rick-p]

jacmiles I have sent you a PM so if you don't receieve it post here again.

 

Rick-p

 

 

[Guest 4aplat]

I have read so much in recent times about the Jabiru 2200 engine's problems and I think that I can safely say that it is very hard to seperate fact from fiction.On this point I don't think that I'm on my own.

I think it's not a fiction !

 

 

 

 

 

MicheL

 

 

[HEON]

Must say 4aplat that was a very nice field to have handy! And a good landing.

 

Gets your attention when there is a big bang, or sudden silance, or both, "up there".

 

 

[Guest 4aplat]

just a good vibration (it was my 3rd hours un solo flight) so I look down to find a good field ! (a cow in French)

 

 

[facthunter]

Damage.

 

I'd say that was a BAD vibration Michel. Dropped valve? exhaust I presume. Check the connecting rod alignment. Nev

 

 

[Guest 4aplat]

it was good for stress !!

 

it was the exhaust valve

 

the engine broke @ 400, 700 and 900 hours

 

most of these engines (with hydraulic push rods) have broken in France

 

we are still looking for the reason why

 

guess one of the problem comes from the valves guides as since we replace them with DIY parts we don't have any problems

 

MicheL

 

Jabiru-owner.com • Page d?index

 

 

[facthunter]

Valve guides.

 

If the valve guides are worn, the valve stem is subjected to bending stresses and the valve head will eventually break off. Nev.

 

 

[dazza 38]

Hi Guys, what i dont understand,(im not looking at a particular brand here), is why can car manufacturers like toyota, honda, nissan etc. Be able to make great car/truck engines and produce them by the thousands. Reliable engines that can go for hundreds of thousand kilometres with out failing. Is weight the issue.ie-car/truck engines are stronger because they are made heavier.PS-jabiru have been making engines for a long time, i thought they would have made them pretty much bullet proof by now.IMO cheers

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

Yeah right.....it would appear they don't know how to !.........................................

 

 

[facthunter]

Weight in engines.

 

dazza38, weight is the issue in part. An aero engine has every bit of metal not required for strength removed. This means that every part is operating closer to its safe structural limit, and it becomes more critical to have everything right. Air cooled engines (used for simplicity and associated reliability) do run hotter and have bigger clearances to cope with that. Local overheating can cause detonation. which causes more heating, a bit of a vicious circle. Aircraft engines start the day with a full throttle as soon as they are just warm enough to do it. They don't get much rest in flight, generally doing most of the day at 75 percent power. The power rating per litre is generally low by car standards, around 50 brake horespower per litre or less, to achieve reliability. You pay extra money for the quality control and the development and compared to cars, they are low volume production. There are many variants to each model as well and if a fault is discovered over time, recalls or modifications are done, so in theory, they should get more reliable over time. Some say the technology is stuck in antiquity, but attempts to go with more modern technology haven't met with much success, over the last thirty years or so. Supercharged and geared engines require much more careful handling. I don't believe that the reliability has improved a lot over some of the engines produced in the early thirty's, but the good ones cost more then in relative terms then than they do now, and most of them have become a little lighter and get pretty high TBO's. While you can only expect to get what you pay for, I don't think that the new Lyc 0-233 at about 22K US is dear because it has a long overhaul life. A Jab has cheap parts and IF you have to take the heads off every 400 hours or so it is not the end of the world. I don't think the Gypsy Majors did much better than that. Reliability can be achieved by appropriate servicing where the product does not have an expected high overhaul life. IF you are running a race engine in a car or bike, you probably have it stripped about every 10 hours, and I'll bet the Red Bull engines don't do much better either. Nev

 

 

[HEON]

Reading the comments from France above, and in other Forums, there seems to be a problem with Jab Engines going "bang", and a slowness or inability to correct the problem(s).

 

While I do not want to get into a Ford-Holden type argument between Jab-Rotax, I just wonder how many more Jab engines would be sold if their reliability was improved.

 

Where I got my pilots certificate they had both Jab and Rotax powered trainers. As I wanted to get my own aircraft I asked questions regarding the respective engines. The answer was along the lines of all Jab's they had owned had major problems,while the Rotax's had not.

 

I got a Rotax powered aircraft after stopping an order for a 230 following a couple of 160's I knew had major engine problems on quite newish engines.

 

Personally I think Jad's are the best value for money aircraft in Australia and generally like the way they handle having flown three different types, HOWEVER I will be very reluctent to ever purchase one until their engines show a better history of reliability.

 

Wounder how many people do not purchase, or will not repurchase, Jab powered aircraft due to engine reliability?

 

 

[dazza 38]

I see your point nev. My motor bike KTM 640 Adventure has had a fairly hard life, i mean if give it a flogging,( but well maintained).it has 11 000 km on it now, i always change oil at 2500 km vaLves adjusted at 1000,5000 and then 10000 (Motorex full synthetic).It hasnt missed a beat.It is also made in Austria like rotax. Honda CBR 250 road bikes rev to 19 000 rpm (not miss print), i have seen some of them get over 70 000 kms without major problems. I like the new lycomming as well, i think it has a TBO of 2400 hrs, or around that figure. On not picking on jabiru in particular, i just thought that over the last 10 or so years they have been producing engines, i thought most of them problems would have been ironed out by now.Kind regards Daryl

 

 

[dazza 38]

Hi Heron, i trained on one of the original jabirus, it had the 1.6ltr engine in it.Anyway i was out in the training area Caloundra.The engine didnt sound right. I went back and landed, told the CFI, two instructors decided to fly it and check it out. About 3 minutes after Take off, then engine failed, they landed on a fire trail, ripped the gear off but they were OK.They then had the A/C repaired and the new 2.2 ltr was fitted.I still flew it afterwards, but it had another failure months later. I decided to move on to another aircraft. This was early days, it their engine development.I know any aircraft engine can fail, but IMHO some aircraft engines are more prone to failure than others.

 

 

[Guest 4aplat]

This plane is still flying after 2700 hours (jab 2200)

 

1 failure at 1700 hoursq (valve, cylinder head etc..)

 

MicheL

 

 

 

[dazza 38]

Goodday mate, i am aircraft technician by trade, (jet engines only not piston) but not for a few years. As previously discussed, i think the main failures is caused by A/C engines for ultralights is caused by engines being designed with a particular weight limit in mind.Ie- not strenghtned in some areas. In General Aviation- i had a piper Archer, it was a lycoming, 360 cubic inches in capacity.It only produced 180 horse power. The engine wasnt working hard, IE- it was realiable. The problem we face is,punching out a lot of horse power in competition with cubic capacity. I know that their are jabiru engines out there with a lot of hours. All i am saying is that their seams to be real or other wise engine related failures. Kind regards Daryl

 

 

[jetboy]

Back on topic

 

This discussion seems to be drifting so heres some fresh data

 

The oil pressure indication I reported earlier has been corrected by placing a new VDO sender on the lower of the two oil gallery ports on front of engine. The indication is lower but real rather than false and I dont expect the sender to wear out like the original.

 

4 exhaust valves were pulled due to minor leakage of 2 of them at 100 hrly (300 hrs) Leakdowns were 80 /62 and above.

 

Valves and seats had minor pitting there was some stem / guide play and a couple of seats were not totally round. A legacy of following the advice of the factory lean running kit me thinks.

 

As engine has allways been tight after running the procedure in AVDALSR050 was carried out.

 

This involved grinding a clearance off the 16 cylinder base nuts where they contact the radius of the flange. Irregular non shiny areas in the lower portion of the cylinders were observed, in line with many photos seen on other NG. I was not tooled up to deal further with this at the time so all was closed back up.

 

Engine has now picked up 200 rpm both at idle and full throttle. In disbelief I had to fit a digital tach to verify as my analog is only scaled to 3300. Level flight now runs 3540 rpm which means the engine has finally caught up to the prop.

 

Ralph

 

 

[Guest Walter Buschor]

The reliability of the Jab engine seems to be an ongoing concern.

 

Since I don't have a jabiru engine I am not qualified to point the finger at this or that part that may need improving.

 

I do remember that in the 70's Harley Davidson was a basket case as their v-twins where totally unreliable.

 

In a desperate act to fix the problem Harley Davidson contracted Porsche

 

to fix the engine and make it reliable. The result was the EVO series engine that not just saved Harley from going bankrupt but turned it into a world success.

 

Porsche has more experiance that any other in air cooled engines and would find the "snag" affecting the Jab engine.

 

The jab could be one of the all time greats of aero engines but they're not quite there yet.

 

Until they fix whatever needs fixing I will stay with Rotax.

 

I do like the 230 though but as I said - It has to be fixed first.

 

safe flying

 

Walter

 

 

[Guest Crezzi]

AFAIK Porsche involvement with Harley was actually on the Revolution engine which came out earlier this decade (& is liquid cooled).

 

Such credit as the Evo engine deserves is Harleys entirely - it may have helped save the company but punative import tarrifs on overseas bikes didn't hurt them either !

 

Cheers

 

John

 

 

[facthunter]

Evo Harleys.

 

Crezzi is right. Also, the main problem with the 70's harleys was assembly and quality control. Also AMF. the pinball company who had taken them over was not known for putting much in the way of R&D back into the company. The EVO motor, which came out in the 80's was a redevelopment of the earlier "iron" engines, IRON barrells, that is, and in the case of the Sportster IRON heads as well, and steel 3-piece cranks in place of the nodular iron 5-piece cranks as well as redesigned con-rods with a much higher fatigue life. Harleys never ever had iron crankcases, as I sometimes hear.

 

Porsche were not involved with this. They were supposed to have had something to do with the 4-valve, 2 cyl which has virtually no mechanical parts in common with the other Harleys, and doesn't really look like one.

 

The later Sportsters Particularly the XR 1200 have incorporated a lot of "Buell" features in the motor, and the bottom end is particularly robust. I only mention this to put the record straight. Nev

 

 

[HEON]

With the discussion drifting...a factory built J170 with Rotax 100hp! Would rearly be something to lust after.

 

 

[facthunter]

Harley powered Aircraft.

 

The Big twins have been used for ultra light power, recently. I'm not going to comment on how good they are, because I don't know. Nev

 

 

[dazza 38]

As there are jabiru engines out their with alot of hours(more than a 1000) with out any problems, and engines out there failing sometimes with less that 100 hours. I am trying to narrow down the cause. I have two thoughts, either quality control might be lacking from the part suppliers. Or maybe finally assembly might be a cause. In either case, i doubt that those are the problem. I mean Quality Control in A/C manufacturing is taken very seriously. So maybe their is a fundamental design problem with one part or a couple of parts. It only takes one little weak link a engine to cause problems. Off thread for a minute- Honda is well known as building great motorbike and car engines etc. They have been doing it for years. When they first went to Titanium valves in their motorcross bikes, they had nothing but trouble with their valves closing up. Yamaha got it right from the start with their five valve head on their Wr/Yzf dirt bikes and their R1 road bikes.Basicaly what i am saying is that, if these mega motorcycle giants can have problems, at times. Then a little Australian company can have problems as well.

 

 

[Guest 4aplat]

for people that are able to read French

 

 

 

 

MicheL

 

Jabiru-owner.com • Page d?index

 

 

[Guest Walter Buschor]

Heon, what a great idea. A 170 with 100HP ( 912S ) . Yes ! and then a 230 With 115 HP ( 914 ) . Great plane and great engine. What a combo! And yes - it would have to be a factory option.:thumb_up::thumb_up::thumb_up:

 

Walter

 

 

[jetjr]

The last Jaba chat has a fair bit regarding engine failures and current state of development

 

http://www.jabiru.net.au/Jabachat/Jaba%20Chat%20December%202008.pdf