Conventional Ignition System

a. Activity learning purpose By the end of the learning activity in this module, without any help from the Teacher / Advisor of the students are expected to be able to : 1. Explain the function of ignition system 2. Explain the function of ignition components 3. Explain how the ignition coil works 4. Explain how the condensor works 5. Explain how the ignition advancer works 6. Explain the meaning of dwell angle

b. Material description There are many different types of ignition systems. Most of these systems can be placed into one of three distinct groups: the conventional breaker point type ignition systems (in use since the early 1900s); the electronic ignition systems (popular since the mid 1970s); and the distributorless ignition system (introduced in the mid 1980s). The automotive ignition system has two basic functions: it must control the spark and timing of the spark plug firing to match varying engine requirements, and it must increase battery voltage to a point where it will overcome the resistance offered by the spark plug gap and fire the plug.

The ignition system has two jobs : 1. change battery voltage (12 V) into high voltage spark 30000 volts or over.

2. delivers the high voltage to the correct cylinder at the corretc time

Fig. 1. Conventional ignition system c. Parts of ignition system

Battery function : Supplies electrical power for circuit

Ignition switch function : turns on or shuts off the primer circuit

Ignition coil function : transforms battery voltage into high voltage

Breaker point function : will automatically turn on and shut off the primery current

Condensor Function :

Helps to prolong breaker point life by preventing point arcing

Distributor function :

Distributes the high voltage to plug wires. Creates the firing order for cylinders

Spark plug fuction : Provides an air gap for spark to jump and ignite fuel mixture

Two circuits of ignition system 1. Primary circuit- Low voltage circuit. It creates a magnetic field then collapses the field or The primary circuit is the low voltage circuit that controls the ignition system Components of primary circuit are bateray, ignition switch, ballast resistor, primary coil winding, breaker point, condenser.

Parts of the primary circuit Breaker point The breaker point is not anything mysterious. It is simply a mechanical switch that turns on and off the ignition coil. It is opened by the distributor cam, and

closed by the point spring. When it is closed, the electricity flows from the battery to the ignition switch on the steering column, to the positive side of the primary coil, and across the points to ground. The only way the electricity can get to ground is across the points, so when the breaker point opens, electrons can no longer flow and the magnetic field around the coil collapses. The breaker point is the weak link in an ignition system that includes them. After as little as 1000 miles it has deteriorated significantly, and gone out of adjustment. By 20,000 miles the engine is not likely to run at all. The breaker point must be replaced, and adjusted at the time of a tune-up. It is set by adjusting "dwell, which is the number of degrees of distributor cam rotation the breaker points are closed for. Dwell, coil saturation time, and cam angle are all the same thing.

As you can see in the diagram, the closer the breaker point is to being closed, the longer they stay closed for and therefore the longer Dwell is. To adjust the breaker point, simply hook up a dwell meter to the coil. ( red lead to negative, black to engine ground) Crank the engine with the distributor cap and rotor off, and adjust the fixed contact of the points until the correct dwell reading is obtained. Condenser

The sole purpose of the condenser is to protect the points, and keep them from burning out prematurely. The collapsing magnetic field not only collapses through the secondary coil, but also through the primary coil. The collapsing field induces a few hundred volts in the primary coil. These electrons have to go somewhere, they are just trying to get to ground by the easiest means possible. If they were allowed to jump across the points, they would burn them out in as little as 100miles. They see the condenser as an easy way to ground but what it really does is store them for a fraction of a second. Meanwhile the points have opened far enough that the 300 volts or so, can't jump across them. The condenser is just a little can with a strip of tin foil and a strip of waxed paper, rolled together inside a little can. A wire is attached to the roll of tin foil and the waxed paper is there to separate one roll of the foil from the next one. The condenser is merely a storage room for electrons. Ballast Resistor (or resistor wire) The coil is designed to operate on 9 volts. Battery voltage (12 volts) is reduced to 9 volts by the Ballast Resistor. When the ignition switch is in the "run" position, the coil is powered through the Ballast Resistor feeding it 9 volts; but when the ignition switch is turned to "start", the Ballast Resistor gets by-passed. This feeds full battery voltage to the coil for better starting. The starter motor is drawing battery voltage down to about 10 volts at this time. Battery Don't forget, without a good battery, you don't have a good ignition system. Primary Coil The primary coil has a few hundred turns of relatively large wire. Its positive side is connected to the ballast resistor, and its negative side is connected to the distributor (or the module in an electronic system). The primary coil is the one that builds the magnetic field around it.

2. Secondary circuit- High voltage circuit. Delivers the high voltage to correct cylinders. Component of secondary circuit are secondary coil winding, high tension wire/cable, distributor cap, rotor, spark plug wire, spark plug.

Parts of the Secondary Circuit

All parts of the Secondary circuit are highly insulated to prevent the high voltage electricity from escaping to ground. Secondary coil The secondary coil has a few thousand turns of hair fine wire. It is the coil that the magnetic field moves through to produce the high voltage electricity. Because of the high number of turns of wire, and because of the extremely high speed the magnetic field is moving at, ( the speed of light ) extremely high voltage is produced, but because the current flow is very small, the wire only needs to be small too. The positive side of the secondary coil attaches to the positive primary wire, and the negative side goes to the coil tower where the coil high tension wire plugs in. Rotor The rotor spins around on the top of the distributor shaft and distributes the spark from the center terminal of the cap to each insert around the outside in the firing order. Is snaps onto, or is held by screws, to the top of the distributor shaft, and only goes on oneway. The rotor is made of "Bakelite", a type of plastic. Bakelite differs from most plastics in that is is capable of withstanding a fair amount of heat. It is, however, quite brittle, but it does have high dialectic strength or resistance to current flow. During a tune-up, the rotor should be checked for worn electrodes, cracks, and evidence of punctures. These are places where the electricity has burned through the rotor to the distributor shaft.

Distributor Cap The distributor cap is also made of bakelite. It has brass, copper, or aluminum inserts in it to conduct the electricity to and from the rotor and the high tension wires. The cap usually has ribs on the inside to prevent flashover between the terminals. There is one insert in the center for the coil HT wire, and inserts around the outside for the spark plug HT wires. The plug wires are pushed into these terminals in the firing order. Good quality caps have copper or brass inserts and not aluminum. There is arcing between the cap and rotor and that arcing causes oxidation of the inserts. Aluminum oxide is a very effective abrasive and causes wear on the distributor shaft bearings. During the tune-up, the cap should be checked for any wear on the inserts, and evidence of "carbon tracking". These are places where the electricity has made another way to ground, or one of the other terminals in the cap. Both cap and rotor should be checked during a tune-up, but they don't necessarily have to be replaced unless they show wear. High Tension Wires The HT leads are highly insulated to prevent the electricity taking a short circuit to ground. There are usually one plug wire going to each spark plug, and one coil wire going from the coil to the center of the cap, although on GM's High Energy ignition system the coil wire has been eliminated by placing the coil directly on the top of the cap. Ht leads are usually carbon core; very much like a little piece of string impregnated with graphite. There is very rarely an actual conductor made of copper. The insulation makes up a large percentage of the diameter of the wire, and is usually made of silicon in modern wire sets. During the tune-up the wires should be checked for evidence of burn through, deterioration of the wire, or boots, or any abnormality. The plug wires should be separated from each other, and never bundled together. Bundling the wires causes cross-fire between the plug leads and therefore the spark plugs. The plug wires can be checked on an engine analyzer, or oscilloscope for high or low firing lines. High firing lines indicate open circuits caused by a broken wire or spark plug, or a wide spark plug gap. Low firing lines indicate a short , caused by leakage to ground. This could be a wire laying across an exhaust manifold or the cylinder head. If you don't have an oscilloscope, HT leads can be checked with an ohm-meter. There should be about a thousand ohms of resistance per foot of wire.

When pulling plug wires off the spark plugs, twist and pull the boot, don't yank on the wire itself. This will cause the wire to break inside and although it will still work right then, it will give problems down the road as the wire burns back in both directions from the break. Wire sets don't necessarily have to be replaced during a tune-up, but they should always be checked. Spark Plugs The spark plugs are the last remaining part of a modern ignition system that need servicing on a regular basis.

The spark plug must run at the correct temperature. If the plug runs too hot, above 900 degrees Celsius, it will glow red hot, and the fuel mixture will start on fire all by itself, not when the plug fires. This is called pre-ignition, and must be avoided at all costs. If the plug runs too cool, below 450 degrees Celsius, it will foul up with crud because it never cleans itself.

High performance and high compression engines have a great deal of heat in the combustion chamber (remember, its the heat that pushes the pistons down) and so don't require any "artificial" heat created by the plug to keep it hot. High performance engines use cold plugs. Low performance, low compression engines don't have a great deal of heat in their combustion chambers and therefore need to keep the plugs hot in another way. They use hot spark plugs. Note the short heat path in the plug on the left. Remember, the hottest part of the plug is the center electrode. The shorter the distance the heat has to travel to the coolant, the cooler the plug runs. A hot spark plug has a longer insulator nose

Projected nose or extended tip plugs take the whole insulator and move it further out into the combustion chamber. This moves the tip into the swirling gasses in the combustion chamber and the tip keeps cleaner than a normal plug and prevents fouling.

A technician can tell a great deal about the engine he is working on simply by "reading" the spark plugs

Worn plugs, like the one on the right in the drawing above, should be replaced. The spark plug air gap must be set when the plugs are installed. Spark plugs are not normally cleaned and re-gapped anymore. Sand blasting the insulator gives it a rough finish and it fouls up easier than when new.

How the ignition coil works An automotive ignition system is divided into two electrical circuits -- the primary and secondary circuits. The primary circuit carries low voltage. This circuit operates only on battery current and is controlled by the breaker points and the ignition switch. The secondary circuit consists of the secondary windings in the coil, the high tension lead between the distributor and the coil (commonly called the coil wire) on external coil distributors, the distributor cap, the distributor rotor, the spark plug leads and the spark plugs. The distributor is the controlling element of the system. It switches the primary current on and off and distributes the current to the proper spark plug each time a spark is needed. The distributor is a stationary housing surrounding a rotating shaft. The shaft is driven at one-half engine speed by the engine's camshaft through the distributor drive gears. A cam near the top of the distributor shaft has one lobe for each cylinder of the engine. The cam operates the contact points, which are mounted on a plate within the distributor housing. A rotor is attached to the top of the distributor shaft. When the distributor cap is in place, a spring-loaded piece of metal in the center of the cap makes contact with a metal strip on top of the rotor. The outer end of the rotor passes very close to the contacts connected to the spark plug leads around the outside of the distributor cap. The coil is the heart of the ignition system. Essentially, it is nothing more than a transformer which takes the relatively low voltage (12 volts) available from the battery and increases it to a point where it will fire the spark plug as much as 40,000 volts. The term "coil" is perhaps a misnomer since there are actually two coils of wire wound about an iron core. These coils are insulated from each other and the whole assembly is enclosed in an oil-filled case. The primary coil, which consists of relatively few turns of heavy wire, is connected to the two primary terminals located on top of the coil. The

secondary coil consists of many turns of fine wire. It is connected to the high-tension connection on top of the coil (the tower into which the coil wire from the distributor is plugged). Under normal operating conditions, power from the battery is fed through a resistor or resistance wire to the primary circuit of the coil and is then grounded through the ignition points in the distributor (the points are closed). Energizing the coil primary circuit with battery voltage produces current flow through the primary windings, which induces a very large, intense magnetic field. This magnetic field remains as long as current flows and the points remain closed. As the distributor cam rotates, the points are pushed apart, breaking the primary circuit and stopping the flow of current. Interrupting the flow of primary current causes the magnetic field to collapse. Just as current flowing through a wire produces a magnetic field, moving a magnetic field across a wire will produce a current. As the magnetic field collapses, its lines of force cross the secondary windings, inducing a current in them. Since there are many more turns of wire in the secondary windings, the voltage from the primary windings is magnified considerably up to 40,000 volts. The voltage from the coil secondary windings flows through the coil high-tension lead to the center of the distributor cap, where it is distributed by the rotor to one of the outer terminals in the cap. From there, it flows through the spark plug lead to the spark plug. This process occurs in a split second and is repeated every time the points open and close, which is up to 1500 times a minute in a 4-cylinder engine at idle. To prevent the high voltage from burning the points, a condenser is installed in the circuit. It absorbs some of the force of the surge of electrical current that occurs during the collapse of the magnetic field. The condenser consists of several layers of aluminum foil separated by insulation. These layers of foil are capable of storing electricity, making the condenser an electrical surge tank.

Voltages just after the points open may reach 250 volts because of the amount of energy stored in the primary windings and the subsequent magnetic field. A condenser which is defective or improperly grounded will not absorb the shock from the fastmoving stream of electricity when the points open and the current can force its way across the point gap, causing pitting and burning.

Timing To give the maximum cylinder pressure and therefore the maximum horsepower, burning of the gasses must be finished by shortly after Top Dead Center. If the piston is allowed to go too far down the cylinder, the combustion chamber volume will have become too big, the pressure will drop and so will the power and economy. In a breaker point ignition system, point opening triggers when the spark happens, so by changing where the points open in relation to the distributor cam, we change when the spark happens. The same thing happens in an electronic system when the

transistor turns the coil off. Timing very rarely needs adjusting in an electronic system because there is nothing that goes out of adjustment. If timing is off, then someone probably adjusted it wrong last time. Basic or Initial Timing Basic timing is the starting point for the automatic timing advance systems so it is imperative that it be set correctly. To set the timing: The engine must be at idle speed to make sure mechanical advance isn't operating. The vacuum line to the distributor vacuum chamber must be disconnected to make sure vacuum advance isn't operating. Basic timing is set by moving the distributor body which of course has the points attached to it. Loosen the clamp that holds the distributor down so the distributor can be moved but leave it tight enough that it can't move itself. Attach a timing light to the engine and shine it down at the timing marks. The timing light will "freeze" the timing mark on the balancer whenever #1 spark plug fires. Adjust the distributor body so the timing mark on the balancer lines up with the correct mark on the scale, and tighten down the distributor clamp. Timing marks can also be located on the engine's flywheel, especially in front wheel drive cars.

If basic , or initial timing is wrong; both vacuum and centrifugal advance will be off too.

Ignition timing Ignition timing is the measurement, in degrees of crankshaft rotation, of the point at which the spark plugs fire in each of the cylinders. It is measured in degrees before or after Top Dead Center (TDC) of the compression stroke. Because it takes a fraction of a second for the spark plug to ignite the mixture in the cylinder, the spark plug must fire a little before the piston reaches TDC. Otherwise, the mixture will not be completely ignited as the piston passes TDC and the full power of the explosion will not be used by the engine. Ignition timing on many of today's vehicles is controlled by the engine control computer and is not adjustable. However the timing can be read using a scan tool connected to the data link connector. The timing measurement is given in degrees of crankshaft rotation before the piston reaches TDC (BTDC). If the setting for the ignition timing is 5 BTDC, the spark plug must fire 5 before each piston reaches TDC. This only holds true, however, when the engine is at idle speed. As the engine speed increases, the pistons go faster. The spark plugs have to ignite the fuel even sooner if it is to be completely ignited when the piston reaches TDC. To do this, distributors have various means of advancing the spark timing as the engine speed increases. On older vehicles, this was accomplished by centrifugal weights within the distributor along with a vacuum diaphragm mounted on the side of the distributor. Later

vehicles are equipped with an electronic spark timing system in which no vacuum or mechanical advance is used, instead all timing changes electronically based on signals from various sensors. If the ignition is set too far advanced (BTDC), the ignition and expansion of the fuel in the cylinder will occur too soon and tend to force the piston down while it is still traveling up. This causes engine ping. If the ignition spark is set too far retarded, after TDC (ATDC), the piston will have already passed TDC and started on its way down when the fuel is ignited. This will cause the piston to be forced down for only a portion of its travel. This will result in poor engine performance and lack of power.

Figure

Normal combustion in the cylinder.

Figure Preignition is just what the name implies -- ignition of the fuel charge prior to the time of the spark. Any hot spot within the combustion chamber, such as glowing carbon deposits, rough metallic edges or overheated spark plugs, can cause preignition.