Ignition system

A petrol engine provides power to propel the car burning a mixture

of petrol and air in its cylinders. The ignition system provides the electric
sparks that ignite the mixture. Each cylinder has spark plug with two
metal points called electrodes, which project into the combustion
chamber. When electricity is provided or fed to the spark plug at high
enough voltage, current jumps across the gap between the electrodes in
the form of a spark. Spark ignition systems are basically the same on all
modern cars. The rest of the ignition system supplies electricity to the
spark-plugs at a high enough voltage and at exactly the right moment in
each cylinder.

A complete ignition system

Spark Timing

The ignition system on your car has to work in perfect concert with
the rest of the engine. The goal is to ignite the fuel at exactly the right
time so that the expanding gases can do the maximum amount of work.

1
If the ignition system fires at the wrong time, power will fall and gas
consumption and emissions can increase. The spark plug fires before the
piston reaches top dead center.

When the fuel/air mixture in the cylinder burns, the temperature

rises and the fuel is converted to exhaust gas. This transformation causes
the pressure in the cylinder to increase dramatically and forces the piston
down.

Power

In order to get the most torque and power from the engine, the
goal is to maximize the pressure in the cylinder during the power stroke.
Maximizing pressure will also produce the best engine efficiency, which
translates directly into better mileage. The timing of the spark is critical
to success.

There is a small delay from the time of the spark to the time when
the fuel/air mixture is all burning and the pressure in the cylinder
reaches its maximum. If the spark occurs right when the piston reaches
the top of the compression stroke, the piston will have already moved
down part of the way into its power stroke before the gases in the
cylinder have reached their highest pressures.

To make the best use of the fuel, the spark should occur before the
piston reaches the top of the compression stroke, so by the time the
piston starts down into its power stroke the pressures are high enough to
start producing useful work.

Work = Force * Distance

In a cylinder:

Force = Pressure * Area of the piston

2
Distance = Stroke length

So when we're talking about a cylinder, work = pressure * piston

area * stroke length. And because the length of the stroke and the area of
the piston are fixed, the only way to maximize work is by increasing
pressure.

Timing

The timing of the spark is important, and the timing can either be
advanced or retarded depending on conditions. The time that the fuel
takes to burn is roughly constant. But the speed of the pistons increases
as the engine speed increases. This means that the faster the engine
goes, the earlier the spark has to occur. This is called spark advance: The
faster the engine speed, the more advance is required.

Other goals, like minimizing emissions, take priority when

maximum power is not required. For instance, by retarding the spark
timing (moving the spark closer to the top of the compression stroke),
maximum cylinder pressures and temperatures can be reduced. Lowering
temperatures helps reduce the formation of nitrogen oxides (NOx), which
are a regulated pollutant. Retarding the timing may also eliminate
knocking; some cars that have knock sensors will do this automatically.

Spark Plug

The spark plug is quite simple in theory: It forces electricity to arc

across a gap, just like a bolt of lightning. The electricity must be at a very
high voltage in order to travel across the gap and create a good spark.
Voltage at the spark plug can be anywhere from 40,000 to 100,000 volts.
The spark plug is in the center of the four valves in each cylinder. The
spark plug must have an insulated passageway for this high voltage to
travel down to the electrode, where it can jump the gap and, from there,

3
be conducted into the engine block and grounded. The plug also has to
withstand the extreme heat and pressure inside the cylinder, and must be
designed so that deposits from fuel
additives do not build up on the plug.

Spark plugs use a ceramic insert

to isolate the high voltage at the
electrode, ensuring that the spark
happens at the tip of the electrode and
not anywhere else on the plug; this
insert does double-duty by helping to
burn off deposits. Ceramic is a fairly
poor heat conductor, so the material
gets quite hot during operation. This
heat helps to burn off deposits from the
electrode.

Some cars require a hot plug.

This type of plug is designed with a ceramic insert that has a smaller
contact area with the metal part of the plug. This reduces the heat
transfer from the ceramic, making it run hotter and thus burn away more
deposits. Cold plugs are designed with more contact area, so they run
cooler.

4
 The difference between a "hot" and a "cold" spark plug is in the
shape of the ceramic tip.

The carmaker will select the right temperature plug for each car.
Some cars with high-performance engines naturally generate more heat,
so they need colder plugs. If the spark plug gets too hot, it could ignite
the fuel before the spark fires; so it is important to stick with the right
type of plug for your car.

The Coil

The coil is the device that generates

the high voltages required to create a
spark. It is a simple device -- essentially a
high-voltage transformer made up of two
coils of wire. One coil of wire is called the
primary coil. Wrapped around it is the
secondary coil. The secondary coil
normally has hundreds of times more
turns of wire than the primary coil.

Current flows from the battery

through the primary winding of the coil.

The primary coil's current can be

suddenly disrupted by the breaker points,
or by a solid-state device in an electronic ignition.

If you think the coil looks like an electromagnet, you're right -- but
it is also an inductor. The key to the coil's operation is what happens
when the circuit is suddenly broken by the points. The magnetic field of
the primary coil collapses rapidly. The secondary coil is engulfed by a
powerful and changing magnetic field. This field induces a current in the

5
coils -- a very high-voltage current (up to 100,000 volts) because of the
number of coils in the secondary winding. The secondary coil feeds this
voltage to the distributor via a very well insulated, high-voltage wire.

The Distributor

The distributor handles several

jobs. Its first job is to distribute the
high voltage from the coil to the correct
cylinder. This is done by the cap and
rotor. The coil is connected to the
rotor, which spins inside the cap. The
rotor spins past a series of contacts,
one contact per cylinder. As the tip of
the rotor passes each contact, a high-
voltage pulse comes from the coil. The
pulse arcs across the small gap between
the rotor and the contact (they don't
actually touch) and then continues down
the spark-plug wire to the spark plug on
the appropriate cylinder. When you do
a tune-up, one of the things youreplace
on your engine is the capand rotor –
these eventually wear out because of the arcing. Also, the spark-plug
wires eventually wear out and lose some of their electrical insulation. This
can be the cause of some very mysterious engine problems.

Older distributors with breaker points have another section in the

bottom half of the distributor -- this section does the job of breaking the
current to the coil. The ground side of the coil is connected to the
breaker points.

6
 A cam in the center of the distributor pushes a lever connected to
one of the points.

Whenever the cam pushes the lever, it opens the points. This
causes the coil to suddenly lose its ground, generating a high-voltage
pulse.

The points also control the timing of the spark. They may have a
vacuum advance or a centrifugal advance. These mechanisms advance
the timing in proportion to engine load or engine speed. Spark timing is
so critical to an engine's performance that most cars don't use points.
Instead, they use a sensor that tells the engine control unit (ECU) the
exact position of the pistons. The engine computer then controls a
transistor that opens and closes the current to the coil.

Types of ignition systems

Battery ignition

Most four-stroke engines have used a mechanical ignition system.

Here, the power source is a lead-acid battery, kept charged by the car's
electrical system, which generates electricity using a dynamo or
alternator.
Battery: The battery is an essential reservoir for storing power to
start the car and operate lights when the engine is not running. Generally
an 12 volts battery is employed in the car. The battery, primary winding
of the ignition coil, condenser and the contact breaker from the primary
circuit, whereas secondary winding of the ignition coil, the distributor
and the spark plug constitutes the secondary circuit.

7
 The engine operates contact breaker points, which interrupt the
current flow to an induction coil (known as the ignition coil) - a type of
autotransformer. This step up the voltage, which is fed via a rotating
switch called a distributor to the spark plugs. This system is not greatly
different from a magneto system, except that more separate elements are
involved. There are also advantages to this arrangement, for example, the
position of the contact breaker points relative to the engine angle can be
changed a small amount dynamically, allowing the ignition timing to be
automatically advanced with increasing revolutions per minute (RPM),
giving better efficiency. This system was used almost universally until the
late 1970s, when electronic ignition systems started to appear.

Magneto system

In the battery ignition system, the current in the primary winding is

supplied by battery, whereas in the magneto ignition system it is
magneto which produces and supplies the current in the primary winding.

8
The simplest form of spark ignition is that using a magneto. The engine
spins a magnet inside a coil, and also operates a contact breaker,
interrupting the current and causing the voltage to be increased
sufficiently to jump a small gap. The spark plugs are connected directly
from the magneto output. Magnetos are not used in modern cars, but
they are often found on mopeds, with 2-stroke engines and also in
aircraft piston engines, where their simplicity and self-contained nature
confers a generally greater reliability as well as lighter weight. Aircraft
engines usually have multiple magnetos to provide redundancy in the
event of a failure. Generally magneto ignition systems are used in racing
cars, motorcycles, scooters.
Basically magneto is of two types,
‣ Rotating armature type: it consists of a permanent magnet fitted
with the two pole shoe. Between the poles is rotated an armature carrying
the primary and the secondary windings.
‣ Rotating magnet type: in this case it is the magnet and not the
armature winding which rotates.

Electronic ignition

The disadvantage of the mechanical system is that it requires

regular adjustment to compensate for wear, and the opening of the
contact breakers, which is responsible for spark timing, is subject to
mechanical variations. In addition, the spark voltage is also dependent on
contact effectiveness, and poor sparking can lead to lower engine
efficiency. Electronic ignition (EI) solves these problems. In an EI system,
the contact breaker points are replaced by an angular sensor of some
kind - either optical, where a vaned rotor breaks a light beam, or more
commonly using a Hall effect sensor, which responds to a rotating
magnet mounted on a suitable shaft. The sensor output is shaped and
processed by suitable circuitry, then used to trigger a switching device
such as a thyristor, which switches a large flow of current through the
coil. The rest of the system (distributor and spark plugs) remains as for
the mechanical system. The lack of moving parts compared with the

9
mechanical system leads to greater reliability and longer service intervals.
For older cars, it is usually possible to retrofit an EI system in place of the
mechanical one.

During the 1980s, EI systems were developed alongside other

improvements such as fuel injection systems. After a while it became
logical to combine the functions of fuel control and ignition into one
electronic system known as an engine management system.

10