Are there different applications of the ignition coil?
Absolutely. In older cars, the coil would still get its spark from the battery, but it would then route it to a distributor which relied on a rotor to rotate the spark to each cylinder connection. Firing off of ignition points, the electricity is then routed to the spark plugs. In later designs, the coil operated in the same fashion but sent the spark to an HEI distributor that didn’t use points. In today’s vehicles, the application of the coil is vastly different. Coils now sit right on top of the spark plugs or spark plug wires and route current transferred from the battery directly to where it is needed. Most of the time, its one ignition coil for each cylinder, but some car makers will run two valves off of one ignition coil. The new system removes the need for a distributor, rotor, distributor cap, and ignition points. It allows the car’s ECU to control the firing order. What can go wrong with a coil? The typical cause of problems for ignition coils would be corrosion from air flo
