A battery in a traditional car cannot directly create engine spark. It’s only rated at 12 volts, after all, so it needs a little help boosting the signal to the spark plugs. To make that happen, a car ...

Fig. 1. The layout of a typical six-cylinder, six-volt ignition system. Note the relationship of the primary and the secondary windings as indicated in the ignition coil. See All 10 Photos Fig. 2. The ...

Don’t worry, it’s not just you. Everyone dropped their first, or likely fortieth, F-bomb when their dad had them hold the spark plug while he hit the kickstarter on their dirt bike. While it might ...

Ignition coils sit at the center of every gasoline engine’s spark, yet they usually stay invisible until something goes wrong. When a coil starts to fail, the symptoms can look like fuel problems, ...

Just like spark plugs, ignition coils can wear down and become faulty over time. There are many common signs that an ignition coil is getting bad, but one obvious sign is an engine misfire, typically ...

Out of the many different aspects of the Pontiac hobby, ignition-system function is often the most misunderstood. Since it deals with an intangible (i.e., electricity), it's very easy to assume one ...

The requirement to gap spark plugs might not be as common as it once was, but it's still an important bit of maintenance on ...