Kitplanes back in October 2017 had a good article on making your own orifice. The author couldn't get his Harbor Freight leakdown tester to work on his small bore Jabiru engine. The HF automotive L/D tester had a 0.080" orifice. He had a drawing of an orifice that looked like a carburetor jet with a 60 degree bevel at both ends of 0.25" long piece. He mentioned the requirement for less than a 5" diameter bore is a 0.060" orifice but didn't state where is reference for this was. Then he mentioned he used 0.040" diameter orifice for his small bore Jabiru.
I recall I read somewhere the orifice size is determined by the cubic inches of the cylinder but sorry I don't know where I read that now.
Anyways for my Rotax tests I just bought a ATS L/D tester designated for the Rotax 900 series motors and the catalogue listed a 0.040" orifice for that tester. One thing we learned in Rotax maintenance school is most leak down testers have a check valve in the sparkplug coupling. We found a used Rotax motor had no leakdown with that check valve and then made realistic leakdown numbers once the check valve was removed. So after I removed my check valve from my coupling my Rotax 912 ULS with only 48 hours run time still had 85#/85# all cylinders. But I can verify with the tester valves the orifice is working as soon as I uncouple the tester hose the air bleeds right down which it didn't do with the check valve installed.
FYI I used the ATS L/D tester instructions and it made it a breeze to do each cylinder. Just use the regulator to add less than 20psi and crank using the prop until the cylinder side (L/D) gauge comes up to match the supply pressure gauge - then your at TDC ready to crank up the supply pressure to 80psi or 85psi or whatever you use. Read the cylinder side gauge and thats it.
Hope this can help ya.
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Originally Posted by cardo0
