Buying a Used 3300: Generational Differences

[Badger830]

The finish line is starting to appear on the horizon and I'm coming up to a point where I'm starting to consider powerplants. I think I've settled on a Jabiru 3300 and am also considering purchasing used instead of new. Browsing through these forums (and others), it sounds like there can be significant differences in generations on the Jabirus. It also seems that so far, gen 4 has had the most changes. I'm trying to decide if it's worth the extra money to buy a new gen 4 or if a used gen 3 (or maybe even gen 2) is worth the savings. Also, any general advice for buying a used Jabiru would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[snx590]

Hi Badger,
I have 400 hours on my Gen 2. In terms of "worth"...it kind of depends on how you define it I suppose. How much hands-on engine experience/know-how do you have? I think there would be some good used engines out there, but the more detailed look you can have the better, and you may find a used engine will require some work. Proper cooling cannot be overlooked when installed in the Sonex. If considering used, at minimum I'd be wanting to do a good borescope in each cylinder at both the valves (front and backside) and the cylinder wall, remove all the rocker covers to have good look inside (how much burned oil stains do you see?) and look for any staining on the outside of the head/cylinder interface particularly on the lower and exhaust sides.
You may have already been on the JabCamit groups.io list. There are many discussions there of issues that have been encountered with the older engine versions.
 

[Dave Wolfe]

Make sure spare parts are still available for whatever generation you have in mind