The purpose of the Distributor Ignition Coils is to create a spark that will ignite the fuel-air mixture in the cylinder of an engine. It must do this at exactly the right instant and do it at the rate of up to several thousand times per minute for each cylinder in the engine. If the timing of that spark is off by a small fraction of a second, the engine will run poorly or not run at all. To learn more about how an engine works, go to our Short Course on Automobile Engines.

　　The ignition system sends an extremely high voltage to the spark plug in each cylinder when the piston is at the top of its compression stroke. The tip of each spark plug contains a gap that the voltage must jump across in order to reach ground. That is where the spark occurs.

　　The voltage that is available to the spark plug is somewhere between 20,000 volts and 50,000 volts or better. The job of the ignition system is to produce that high voltage from a 12 volt source and get it to each cylinder in a specific order, at exactly the right time.

　　Let’s see how this is done.

　　The ignition system has two tasks to perform. First, it must create a voltage high enough (20,000+) to arc across the gap of a spark plug, thus creating a spark strong enough to ignite the air/fuel mixture for combustion. Second, it must control the timing of that the spark so it occurs at the exact right time and send it to the correct cylinder.

　　The ignition system is divided into two sections, the primary circuit and the secondary circuit. The low voltage primary circuit operates at battery voltage (12 to 14.5 volts) and is responsible for generating the signal to fire the spark plug at the exact right time and sending that signal to the ignition coil. The ignition coil is the component that converts the 12 volt signal into the high 20,000+ volt charge. Once the voltage is stepped up, it goes to the secondary circuit which then directs the charge to the correct spark plug at the right time.

　　The Basics

　　Before we begin this discussion, let’s talk a bit about electricity in general. I know that this is basic stuff, but there was a time that you didn’t know about this and there are people who need to know the basics so that they could make sense of what follows.

　　All automobiles work on DC, or Direct Current. This means that current moves in one direction, from the positive battery terminal to the negative battery terminal. In the case of the automobile, the negative battery terminal is connected by a heavy cable directly to the body and the engine block of the vehicle. The body and any metal component in contact with it is called the Ground. This means that a circuit that needs to send current back to the negative side of the battery can be connected to any part of the vehicle’s metal body or the metal engine block.

　　A good example to see how this works is the headlight circuit. The headlight circuit consists of a wire that goes from the positive battery terminal to the headlight switch. Another wire goes from the headlight switch to one of two terminals on the headlamp bulb. Finally, a third wire goes from a second terminal on the bulb to the metal body of the car. When you switch the headlights on, you are connecting the wire from the battery with the wire to the headlamps allowing battery current to go directly to the headlamp bulbs. Electricity passes through the filaments inside the bulb, then out the other wire to the metal body. From there, the current goes back to the negative terminal of the battery completing the circuit. Once the current is flowing through this circuit, the filament inside the headlamp gets hot and glows brightly. Let there be light.

　　Now, back to the ignition system. The basic principle of the electrical spark ignition system has not changed for over 75 years. What has changed is the method by which the spark is created and how it is distributed.

　　Currently, there are three distinct types of ignition systems, The Mechanical Ignition System was used prior to 1975. It was mechanical and electrical and used no electronics. By understanding these early systems, it will be easier to understand the new electronic and computer controlled ignition systems, so don’t skip over it. The Electronic Ignition System started finding its way to production vehicles during the early ’70s and became popular when better control and improved reliability became important with the advent of emission controls. Finally, the Distributorless Ignition System became available in the mid ’80s. This system was always computer controlled and contained no moving parts, so reliability was greatly improved. Most of these systems required no maintenance except replacing the spark plugs at intervals from 60,000 to over 100,000 miles.

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