Just a couple thoughts.
We all see the advertised "Power Output Levels" that many ignition
manufacturers use to build interest in their products. Yes, it's true
... many ignition manufacturers will tell you whatever it takes for them
to get you to believe that their ignition is the best :-)
One of the good ones is advertised coil output and also aftermarket
Ignition Unit output (usually an Inductive Electronic or CD "Capacitive
Discharge" Unit). What people tell you is that you MUST have the
highest output ignition unit because it's the best.
What really happens is that your engine (each cylinder) will ONLY use
the amount of voltage it takes to jump the spark plug gap and fire the
air/fuel mixture in that cylinder. Your engine requires a lot less spark
than what is advertised. Even if you have a Gazillion Millijoules of
advertised output, if your engine only needs 20,000 volts to jump
the plug gap, that's all the unit will give. What they should tell you
is that the unit "can" deliver up to that rating if the engine demands
it. So, does your engine really demand that much voltage output
... probably not.
Want another misnomer? Well, this one is on multi-strike ignition systems.
You probably may not have guessed it, but the analog multi-strike has
less time as engine RPM increases to get off as many sparks. Do these
extra sparks help your engine? Not really, the major concern is the actual
spark duration in "Crank Degrees" that you have for each spark on each cycle.
Most aftermarket ignition manufacturers give you 20° of spark duration with
each
spark. Now, this spark will not carry full voltage over the entire
20°. As the spark
duration continues it loses voltage output. The reason behind the longer
spark is
to make sure there is a complete and thorough burn of the air fuel
mixture. With
high dome pistons, tight valve shrouding and other issues, you can get portions
of your mixture that do not get a decent ignition. By holding the spark up to
20° of crankshaft duration you virtually eliminate these problems (if your
engine is in proper tune). Having a greater voltage hold over the entire 20°
should be more of a concern than peak voltage output.
BT (RT to some)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:01:56 EDT