How To Make Really Small Diesel Engines

Tiny diesels have an attraction much (much) larger than their footprint—I've seen collectors turn a greenish blue and stammer out crazy offers on sight of my 0.1cc Nano, pictured here. But as the size goes down, construction difficulty and criticality of "fits" goes up exponentially. There are other traps for the builder too in the fuel system and starting techniques. Suffice to say, making one that runs is a lot harder than it looks.

Over the years that I've been writing Model Engine News, I, and others, have offered tips and things to avoid for those who want to construct a mini, or micro IC engine. Sadly, the fragments of wisdom are badly scattered. This page serves as a long overdue index to those I remember exist.

Engines 0.5cc and Under:

   0.10cc Gordon Nano diesel
   0.15cc Allbon Bambi diesel
   0.24cc Clanford Clan diesel
   0.33cc Diesel by Peter Burford
   0.375cc Topsy Diesel
   0.43cc Mini-Weaver diesel by Dave Miner
   0.43cc Mini-Mills diesel by Dave Miner
   0.46cc ED Baby Replica
   0.5cc Gordon Alpha diesel

Engines 1cc to 0.5cc:

   0.63 Sparey ".8cc" diesel
   0.8cc Little Dragon (glow) by Roy Clough Jr
   0.8cc ML Midge diesel
   0.8cc EZE series by
   1.0cc Weaver-Ransom diesel