Hello and welcome back to our series on automotive tools and how to guides for the new weekend warrior auto mechanic.
This isn't meant for the professional, but rather the average Joe who is looking to get his hands a little dirty on the weekends.
In the past, we have covered a lot of tools but in today's article I'm going to cover how your car's ignition system works.
If you've been following along with our articles you will already know that the ignition system is responsible for making ignition occur within the combustion chamber of each cylinder head.
Without ignition, we would not have combustion and therefore could not run an engine.
After your car has been started, the ignition system keeps the spark going to each individual spark plug, timed in conjunction with the time that the piston will reach the top of its compression stroke so that the fuel can burn.
It does this by passing current from the alternator to the ignition coil where it is amplified and passed to the distributor.
The distributor dictates when the spark should travel down to the plug, and when it does, the current flows through the wire and jumps the gap between the spark plugs electrodes creating the ignition needed for the engine to run.
Any electrical failure in this system will result in a car that doesn't run or runs very poorly and erratically.
Be careful while working on the ignition system as the coil can supply up to 40,000 volts in most cars while high performance coils can supply nearly 200,000 volts.
That's more than enough to give you a good shock and possibly seriously harm you.
Remember to work smart by working safely.
This isn't meant for the professional, but rather the average Joe who is looking to get his hands a little dirty on the weekends.
In the past, we have covered a lot of tools but in today's article I'm going to cover how your car's ignition system works.
If you've been following along with our articles you will already know that the ignition system is responsible for making ignition occur within the combustion chamber of each cylinder head.
Without ignition, we would not have combustion and therefore could not run an engine.
After your car has been started, the ignition system keeps the spark going to each individual spark plug, timed in conjunction with the time that the piston will reach the top of its compression stroke so that the fuel can burn.
It does this by passing current from the alternator to the ignition coil where it is amplified and passed to the distributor.
The distributor dictates when the spark should travel down to the plug, and when it does, the current flows through the wire and jumps the gap between the spark plugs electrodes creating the ignition needed for the engine to run.
Any electrical failure in this system will result in a car that doesn't run or runs very poorly and erratically.
Be careful while working on the ignition system as the coil can supply up to 40,000 volts in most cars while high performance coils can supply nearly 200,000 volts.
That's more than enough to give you a good shock and possibly seriously harm you.
Remember to work smart by working safely.