This Radio-Controlled 4x4 With A Tiny Four-Cylinder May Be The Ultimate Toy

Everyone loves a radio-controlled car. Be it a £20 pre-built one you stuff a couple of AA batteries into, a DIY Tamiya kit, or even a high-end nitro car, they’re all good fun and even better when you build them yourself. Have you ever wanted one with a proper engine, though? Well, one YouTuber may have just tickled your fancy.

JohnnyQ90 has done something most of us can only imagine: cramming a tiny, tiny four-cylinder engine into the chassis of a 4x4 crawler R/C car, and it’s a work of art.

More interesting still, this is actually an engine swap - with the car featuring a V-twin engine and a three-speed gearbox initially.

Now, though, a Cison 17.5cc engine has been put into its place albeit with some fairly extensive modifications needed to the chassis to make it happen. JohnnyQ90 shows himself milling and cutting down custom metal brackets to size which already puts a slight dent in our fantasies of doing it in the shed at home.

Helping to cool the engine is a comically small radiator mounted towards the back of the car, complete with an 80mm fan and its own coolant expansion tank. More bespoke modifications follow on, with a 3D-printed box to store the usual R/C electronics added.

With all the other ancillaries fitted, completing the package is a dinky exhaust, albeit in proportion to the rest of the car it looks absolutely huge. Without the need for a cat, it sounds bonkers when we finally hear it running.

There’s no known horsepower figure for the 17.5cc engine and, admittedly, watching the car trundle across fields, the whole thing seems a bit overkill but equally hilarious. Just in case you fancy having a go yourself, you can find the Cison engine on the likes of Alibaba and eBay from around £800 to £1,000.