[Jeff Higgins]

We race these things in a local series during the summer. All racing is done in a large parking lot (it moves around year to year). The organizer has a trailer full of side boards to enclose the track, and plastic FIA curbing style barriers that are used to lay out the course.

These things never really hit top speed on the size of track we can lay out in a typical parking lot. Just like real cars, we gear them for the track, so ours are geared to top out at maybe 50 mph max. They will certainly go much faster than that, if you can find room.

The four stroke is an off the shelf O.S. FS26, meant specifically for cars. That said, it is absolutely not supported, even by O.S., in any way. You can't even find flywheels and clutches that fit it's oddball crankshaft (they just use the airplane crank). I wound up having to adapt 1/8 scale stuff. The gearing must also be a good deal taller than for a two cycle, and nothing it available. I wound up building my own gear sets for the clutch and transmission from a mix of HPI and Traxxas gears. There is no exhaust system available for it, either. You can tell mine is home made. The single needle rotary carb it comes with might work well enough in an airplane, but it is junk for a car. Like I said, I wound up with a two needle slide valve carb from an O.S. .12 two cycle. Finally, it is difficult to supply it with fuel. On a two cycle, we typically pressurize the tank from a tap on the tuned pipe. Do that with a four cycle, and all it does it foam the fuel, due to it much larger and further spaced exhaust pulses. I wound up with a Perry micro-oscillating fuel pump (you can see it in the photo next to the radio box). It is adjustable for flow volume, and works wonderfully with the heavy vibration of the four stroke. And, finally, what really woke this motor up was the "big bore kit". I simply bought a replacement piston and sleeve for the FS30 airplane motor. It fits right into the FS26 cylinder/crankcase casting.

Anyway, my younger son and I have raced these for about 7-8 years now. He is now 18, and much more interested in real cars. We are currently building a '68 912 into a 911 for him, complete with an MFI inducted 2.4. Should be running in just a few weeks, as a matter of fact...