I recently purchased a gen 4 3300 however it now requires a new crankshaft. The engine only has 37 hours total time. I requested an exchange engine but was turned down so it will be torn down to correct the issue, very disappointed in Jabiru over this. I will incur a lot of expense and down time because of this, if this was Lycoming, Continental, or Rotax it would be exchanged. I can install it myself, I've been maintaining aircraft for 52 years. Even with this I am impressed with the 230D aircraft.
On another subject: I believe the new E-PROPS propeller being developed would be a game changer on a Jabiru. I was able to perform an analysis on Flight Design with an E-PROPS propeller which resulted in it being approved for all FD aircraft in the US. The performance increase is substantial for cruise speed, rate of climb, vibration, etc. The other important aspect is it has a very low moment of inertia which is less than half of that on the fiberglass prop for the 230D. This significantly reduces the gyroscopic forces on the crankshaft. The E-PROPS propeller and spinner only weighs about 5 lbs.
If Jabiru doesn’t approve the use of it within a reasonable time I will convert to experimental and document the analysis like I did with Flight Design.
