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 ...

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 ...

An internal combustion engine needs three things to get going: Air, fuel, and spark. The throttle body and intake plenum feed air, while injectors spray the right fuel mix into the combustion chamber.

Paging through an ignition catalog reveals all sorts of different ignition coils for conventional distributor-type ignition systems. To say it's a mite confusing is an understatement!Just how does an ...

"It's not a heap, dad. It's a classic." That's harder to justify when your classic muscle car won't start. Nothing like a high-compression V8 combined with a battery that hasn't seen a charge for a ...

Editor's Note: Way back in March of 1998, GMHTP ran "Opti-Spark" by Ray Bohacz, an engineering-level dissection of GM's Opti-Spark distributor. This evolutionary ignition component was a bridge ...

Spark plugs are one of those maintenance items that, along with things like brake fluid and thermostats, are easily overlooked but extremely important to your car's safety, longevity, and performance.

A fundamental difference between gasoline and diesel engines is that a gasoline engine uses spark ignition while a diesel engine uses compression ignition. Before we delve deeper, let's understand how ...