"Bret Ludwig" wrote in message
ups.com...

Evan Carew wrote:
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A friend of mine has the new Jabiru 6 cylinder engine in his home built
with ~100 hours on it. He says that every 25 hrs, he has to adjust the
valves. At his 100 hour, he has to do a differential pressure test.
After helping him with his pressure test, we noticed that #6 was out of
spec for losing pressure. It turns out that the fix for the pressure
issue was to tighten the head bolts on #6.

Is this a normal amount of maintenance for a jibaru? Am I the only one
who thinks this is a bit too much effort for maintaining an aircraft
engine?


The Jabiru is not a US certificated aircraft engine nor does it have
any other use or installed base. Plus, apparently the US distributor is
a world class Dirty Rotten C10r. Why beat your head against the
ground with such a thing?

Buy a LyCon (yecch) or buy a general purpose engine for which you can
get parts through car, boat, industrial, performance sources.

Just my opinion. Never touched a Jabiru, no desire to do so, unless
they start turning up surplus at five cents on the dollar. (A Corvair
has to be a better choice, hands down.)


Very nice to post such a comment when you have zero experience with the
engine. Insult the distributor(s) while at it. Nice. Contrary to your post,
I have experienced the US distributors are very helpful, always available
and ready for you. Even when you bought the engine from someone else, or
when you're not in the US like me.

As for the OP, the recommendation is to re-torque the head bolts every 25
hours. It's important to torque all bolts, including the 'hidden' fifth one.
The manual is explicit about these intervals. If your friend has done this
then he might have ran his engine too hot. What EGT/CHT values has he been
running at, for all cylinders? Also, what oil did he use?

Your friend may want to visit the Jabiru engines group on Yahoo. Lots of
knowledge there, as well as prescence and active participation of the
distributors.

Rob