The ignition system is a glutton for punishment. As the miles rack up, the distributor wears out, the coil gets abused, and the spark plug wires melt. The steadfast ignition system only gets attention ...

Engines need spark plugs to burn their air/fuel mixture, and the spark plugs need a jolt of electricity to do their work. Older cars with conventional distributor-based ignition systems did it by ...

The purpose of the ignition system is to ignite, or fire, the spark plugs in order to generate power to run the engine. To do so, the battery sends current to the ignition coil. Then that high voltage ...

It seems like such a small thing—that tiny area approximately 0.040 of an inch wide inside each combustion chamber. That area we're talking about is the gap between the electrode and strap on each ...

Heat initiates the internal combustion process. Diesel engines utilize the temperature buildup from extremely high compression (pressure) to ignite the air/fuel mixture, with a little help from glow ...

Automotive ignitions systems have seen many transitions over the years. Historically, the designs have matured from a magneto to today’s coil-over-spark plug designs. The progression follows the ...

The intermittent stalling problem was solved by replacing the distributor. This is the sequel to troubleshooting my ‘86 Dodge Aries that defied logic and baffled my mechanic. To be sure, electronic ...