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 ...

Combustion requires three elements - fuel, air and an ignition source. Air is a no-brainer, being available pretty much wherever drivers are. For most of the history of the automobile we've mainly ...

The ignition coil in C1, C2, and early C3 Corvettes is truly an amazing little device. An ignition coil is a type of pulse transformer that multiplies the low voltage received from the battery or ...

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 ...

"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 ...

Question: I have a 2006 Kia Sedona, and it randomly misfires roughly once for every week of normal driving and once after each carwash. When it happens, I pull over and shut off the car. Then, I turn ...

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 ...

Any certified gearhead knows that diesel engines do not use spark plugs. But why not? If power in an engine is created by combustion or explosion of flammable liquids, won't a spark plug in a diesel ...