Miniature Internal Combustion Engines Hardcover – September 28, 2007

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.

Well written… with good clear technical explanitations.

If you already know a bit about IC engines, this book may not be very helpful. To me, it seemed short on helpful and specific tips for engine building. It is a lovely publication, nice photos, nice paper. I just expected more insight into either the machine work or suppliers, recommendations, etc. It may be more helpful if you are trying to design your own engine. Also, it covers a lot of topics but more as a survey. After reading it cover to cover, I did not feel like I was going away with any great, new insights.

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

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

I have many books on Internal Combustion engines and various other heat engines. I've built a few model sized engines and was surprised by how much easier it was than I thought it would be. After all, the big engine makers have huge teams of designers, engineers, machinists and metallurgists. It had to be hard or at least a very lengthy process or so I and many others thought.This book does exactly what I and (I know) many of my colleagues needed. It dispels the mythology, it provides plenty of examples, tells you what tools & materials can be used and how to substitute if you don't have a particular thing. I pre-ordered and waited impatiently for it to come. I am so pleased with it.Yes, there have been a couple of publishing problems which the publishers acknowledge but they do not harm the clear integrity and concise descriptions provided by the author. It is my prediction that if you have not built or designed an Internal Combustion engine, you will rush out and do both once you have this book.Buy other books by all means, because you will need them for complex or larger engines, however even those are dealt with here.My hope is that model engine designers & constructors, with the help of this book, readily available computers and model sized machining equipment will produce many new variations on the worlds existing designs.Go, buy it, add to your collection and start a design now!!! This book will convince you that you can do it and show you how easy it really is.Like all books on construction subjects, you wish there were even more examples and more details and you wish you could touch the example models. This is a long awaited book. I hope there will be a sequel and very soon.

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.