I just received, yesterday, my Jabiru firewall fwd kit. I am initially very
satisfied. The 3300 Europa cowling is attractive, all the bits and pieces seem
to be there, including the engine mount which was quality control checked (no
finish). The engine of course, is a machinist jewell.
I'll review some of my soul searching. The difference between the Jabiru and
Rotax goes directly to engine life, which stemmed from (obviously) conscious
design/ market considerations. Jabiru seems to have wanted to minimize JAR
approval process by patterning their engine after proven designs. Rotax had the
resources to go after the experimental market, and then move into certified.
Jabiru is now claiming 2000 TBO. (They also claim 120 HP, but it's the torque
that matters and it top out of torque at around 2500.)
While reaserching ways to get the torque up on the Jabiru, which is slightly
less than the 912, I noticed that everything I would do to the Jabiru, is
already done to the Rotaxs.
Examples:
1) Boost the compression: 7.9/1 v.s. 10/1 - This is why the Rotax shakes like a
wet dog on start-up and shut-down.
2) Improve the intake: Labyrinth heated air (through hot oil pan up through hot
cylinder cooling air) v.s. twin carbs on the top side above the heat through
cast intake manifold directly into the cylinders
...among some other small things.
With the Jabiru you are theoretically buying reliability and certainly
simplicity of installation. With the Rotax you are buying state-of-the art
power to weight and hybrid cooling.
There is an issue about cooling. The Warp drive blades have a narrow chord near
the hub, which is considered not optimal for blowing into the Jabiru's cowl
openings. They currently recommend using a fixed pitch prop to develop
benchmark numbers before going to a constant speed that may use the Warp drive
prop.
Cleve Lee
N396ST A198 Mono XS
Detroit, MI
On Wed, 19 June 2002, "John Cliff" wrote
>
> This message is posted on behalf of "Joseph J. Like" <josephlike@cox.net>,
> who
> is having continuing problems with our troubled email list.
>
> *********************************************************************
>
>
> Hi all, I'm one of the ones that has been kicked off the net. Thanks to
> John 's temp fix I'm now receiving
> msgs after about a month off.
>
> I'm writing because I'm at the stage where I need to make a decision on
> my power plant. Because of the
> cost, the 914 is out. So I between the Jabiru 3300 and the 912S. I've
> also been thinking of the prince P-tip
> prop.
>
> I only know of one Europa flying with the Jabiru engine. The club files
> show several more but no info from
> anyone has been forth coming. I would love to hear some opinions on the
> Jabiru 3300 verse the Rotax
> 912S.
>
> Joseph J. Like
> Europa Mono XS
> A086
>
>
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