For Ignition System Novices

[Joe Flanagan]

For those of you who are like me and only have a very basic understanding of how the ignition system works, I wanted to post this link. It has a great explanation and an even better diagram showing it all in operation. Where my knowledge is really lacking is concerning how the coil works and how it works in conjunction with the points in the distributor. It always seemed like some kind of car voodoo to me: points, condenser, gap, dwell, angle, yugh. So aside from learning the hard way on my project car, I've been researching stuff to help me understand it. I found this very useful:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/ignition-system.htm

[jd52cranbrook]

cool site, gonna save it.

[P-12 Tommy]

That's a good start Joe!

Tom

[bearheart]

Thanks for that....a nice primer.

[DutchEdwin]

Joe, that's a great site. Gives me a help on all the translations on technical part names into English.

[Jim Saraceno]

The Imperial Club has many reference materials for electrical systems (and all systems really).

Here's just one of many...

http://www.imperialclub.com/Repair/Lit/Master/127/Page01.htm

[Joe Flanagan]

Jim, I've seen the links to the Imperial Club that you've posted before. They're the best. I have them all bookmarked. The really nice thing about them is they don't resort to insider language and explain things in terms the average person can understand. I've seen some things explained on the Internet and I just sit back and ask myself, "What did I just read?" I wind up with more questions than when I started. They did a great job with these instructional materials. I love reading them.

[Jim Saraceno]

Yeah, I tap their website on a regular basis. They have some great stuff.

I've seen some things explained on the Internet and I just sit back and ask myself, "What did I just read?" I wind up with more questions than when I started. They did a great job with these instructional materials. I love reading them.

If you want to see things clearly explained you should watch this video...

It's one of those things that once you hear the explanation, you wonder why it wasn't self evident!

[Young Ed]

Thanks Joe. Since I've been playing around with this T5 I've had some curiosities about how a clutch exactly works. Of course knowing how it works is esential when modifing anything. I looked at that site and found a perfect explanation.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/clutch1.htm

[Dave Bohn]

Skinned Knuckles is a good resource too - I never understood how/why ignition points worked until they had a great artical explaining ignition systems recently. All in all they have a lot of good how to articles for doing it yourself.