Miniature Internal Combustion Engines

building a small IC motor is one of the reasons I bought a lathe - this book takes the terms and mystery out of various plans and other websites, and explains it in simple terms, and builds the reader's knowledge over the course of the book. timing charts, induction, construction methods - these are all covered, and very little is presumed as 'prerequisite knowledge"... there is little in the way of plans in the book, but more than enough information to lead the reader to the point where they can build form plans, and then troubleshoot and run their motor with confidence.

I just recieved the book and only have read the the backover, index and introduction. I also visited quickly the rest of the book and this is what i have found:Good:*dust cover with nice and high quality picture.*sewn hard cover, exellent high quality but also high cost!!.*good paper.*Each chaper is divided on critical parts of the engine + required materials and everything involved in the design. a lot of good info. probably will not find other places. I never tough i could find a book like this. I think it is the only one available.*color pictures.bad:*All the pictures in the book are color, yes, but very low resolution. It is easy to see the squares (pixels) on all of them. The only high quality picture is that of the dust cover.*4 erratas. Yes, there is an extra sheet inside the book explaing this and the correction, i have used tape to hold it on the last page. But, Did the author take the time to review and approve his work before publishing / printing? I do not hink so.*After a lot of exellent good information about the design requirement and guidelines, there is not a simple project with drawings, sugestions and issues one can find when it is built. I was expecting at least one easy to build project, after all the information is there and the cost of the book is not cheap. i almost agree with Andy Chan on his 3 star review when he talks about this issue. Yes, one can search on google for some drawings, but why search on www if i bought a book which states on the backcover that this book cover in detail the principles and processes involved in the construcion of various types of ICE.I would strongly recommend the author 4 things for next edition:*high quality pictures. Select the macro option in the camera to avoid a lot of zoon in and deteriorate the quality of the picture when taking a picture far away.*Please!! review your work before printing. Do not let publishers to push to release it to avoid these shameful erratas.*Include only one or two easy to build designs with some explanation, advantages, disadvantages, application (may on 21 century is not used, but it was) and drawings. The more complex designs, you let us to use do some reasearch for drawing on www or let us use our imagination. Even if this add more pages to the book.*I do not care about the exellent paper used on the book, if the content is great which i think it is, i think many people will paid the same cost for the extra pages with a lower quality paper.My review will be complete by adding Andy Chan and Jason walters reviews to mine.

Excellent details. Book arrived on time and in great condition. No signs of wear or use.

The book covers most (if not all) of the MICE you will come across if you are trying to make one in home workshop.Pros:1) It will give you the knowledge you will needed as a model engineer not a engineer. i.e. it won't bore you and you don't have to come across any thermal dynamic theory / calculation.2) It states which component is critical, what material is preferred and, a briefing on the procedure in making them if you don't have a CNC.3) Some options / suggestions on `hard to machine' parts, that help you to decide whether to machine it from single piece of stock metal or using build-up technique.4) Easy to understand, no (minimum) difficult technical terms.Cons:(Not really Cons, but may be out of your expectation)1) No drawing provided, even the one designed by the author. But it is not hard to search Google.2) That means, the book is not a "from start to finish" approach. You will be on your own for your first attempt in building one.3) No illustration on the processes in making the critical components, the author uses only `a series of' description. It may hard to figure out what is happening if you do not have that component on hand.Bottom line:A must have if you want to build a MICE using your mini-lathe & mill, there isn't much option. After all, it save you a lot of time browsing through newsgroups.

A good technical reference for small IC engines used for model aircraft. You end up learning a little about the bigger engines in the process.

Great book. Very thorough. Filled with great colored photos.

Great book. Lots of useful information. Happy to recommend.

Arrived on time and as expected.

enfin un livre qui explique bien la construction des petits moteurs thermique dommage qu il soit en anglais enfin bon on arrive a comprendre dommage qu en france personne n est capable d ecrire un tel ouvrage.

本書は模型用内燃機関に関して詳しく書かれています。趣味でエンジンを作る方に参考になるかもしれません。模型といっても作動原理は実物と同様で、星型エンジンやローターリーエンジンの分解写真等は参考になりそうです。

Not impressed. A very shallow reading written in awkward language, when the author thinks you know what he means. A lot of non-professional terminology and mixed metric and imperial units. Anyways, better than nothing for beginners.