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 ...

As long as there have been internal combustion engines, there has been a need for an ignition system to ignite the air and fuel mixture in the cylinders. From the earliest days of automotive ignitions ...

Over the past few years, we have run across some teams who, for the goal of attaining maximum power, chose to run without an alternator. We started thinking about that and decided to see if there were ...

Because of its mass, a battery takes a long time to change temperature. If a vehicle sits out all weekend in a zero-degree environment, it might take 30 hours to warm up the battery. Use the outside ...

Worn ignition component gremlins are mysterious little buggers. Ignition misfires can be confused with fuel mixture or delivery problems. Even ambient humidity can affect the ignition system—making a ...

Push-button start may be common today, but it wasn't always the dominant way to crank an engine. Push-button start systems and ignition key systems activate the same process in different ways. Do you ...