I just got back from taking the Jabiru Engine Course given by Jabiru USA in Shelbyville, Tennessee.  It's a 2-day course on the history, maintenance, and overhaul procedures for the Jabiru 2200 and 3300 engines.

Pete Krotje gave a history of the development of the engines. One take-home point was that there has been continuous quality improvement and development over the years, so the later-model engines are much more robust and reliable relative to earlier engines. He also addressed the Australian CASA (sort of like our US FAA) fiasco where CASA  reported "increased problems" with Jabiru engines and put some temporary onerous restrictions on them in Australia. The bottom line was that this was based on only 4 months of data which they did not analyze: for instance, two cases of "engine malfunction" were actually just pilots getting lost! Some other cases of "engine malfunction" were running out of gas, etc. The majority of true engine problems were concentrated in a few flight schools in Australia and so maintenance and engine management technique (or lack of it!) were suspect.  It was also interesting that there have been almost none of these "problems" in the US engines.

We went through each system on the engine including the Bing carburetor and ignition systems. There was a thorough discussion and demonstration of head and valve removal and we hands-on reassembled an engine from the crank to the head.

I likely will never do major, internal repairs on my engine, but the better understanding of how it works and the ability to pull a head to send-out for repairs was very valuable.  Although I've had 300+ hrs of relatively trouble-free experience with my engine (#2427), I left the course with even more confidence as to flying and maintaining the engine.

These seminars have a limited class size and typically sell-out, but if you have any interest in Jabiru engines, I'd highly recommend attending one!

John

N750A

(the usual disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with or have a business relationship with Jabiru/Jabiru USA - just a happy customer!)