Series wired spark plugs

[jalopy43]

Does anyone have any info on this setup? I remember seeing one in HRmag. way back in the 6o's. I think it was a nailhead showcar. I have heard that it would work, as the cylinder couldn't actually fire before "it's time"(fuel,and compression just right). One wire jumping from plug to plug,looked real neat,but maybe it was just a "showcar"thing??? http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif Sparky

[porknbeaner]

It only works well on cylinders that fire 180 out.
When they get too close together is can really screw things up. IE the cylinder fireing when the intake valve is open.
But why would you want to when you have a distributer that seperatly fires each cylinder at the correct time.

[Bruce Lancaster]

I remember that show car--I remember it as a T bucket with nailhead. The magazine
(HRM? Car Craft?) swore it ran, but never gave with any info. Anyone actually know how that particular car was set up??

[C9]

I saw that setup at an LA sports arena car show in the early 60's and questioned it.
The owner fired it up and it ran fine.
Was a Chevy V8 if I remember right. (They weren't called small blocks then - just fast.... http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif)

Way they work is the spark plug sits in an adapter screwed into the heads spark plug hole.
The adapter looks a lot like the anti-fouling adapters you see nowadays. (Check the KD tool rack.)
The adapter has a small hole drilled through it and a small ignition chamber under the plugs electrodes.
The fresh fuel-air mix was compressed into the ignition chamber and ignited by the constantly arcing plug.
Due to the time required for the fresh fuel-air mix to travel up into the ignition chamber and the resulting flame front to travel down into the combustion chamber proper and ignite the main fuel-air mix the timing was about right.

When the rpms came up the added compression slowed down the burn rate from ignition chamber to combustion chamber which was an effective form of spark advance.

It worked and was interesting, but it didn't work as well as a self-regulating ignition system - vacuum and centrifugal advance which looks at load and rpm - cuz the serial wired system it could only handle one parameter which was time.
Variable time, granted, but to my eyes it was a performance limiting device that was more of a gimmick than a real improvement in ignition science.
Probably a take off on the very early "flame-sucker" engines.

The big flaw - I'm guessing - was that the spark plugs ground electrode wore away in a hurry.

Was a boon though - specially for those guys who couldn't rewire a distributor to save their life.
That part, my opinion since some of my bitten many-times buddies viewed spark plug wires as a nest of snakes to be avoided.... http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif

[ray]

yeah, what C9 said.

most harleys, as well as brits with aftermarket ignition usually fire on the exhaust stroke as well. don't know if theres a performance advantage, but it's easy to tell when you have an engine miss.

i don't know about "not firing before it's time". detonation pretty much proves that theory wrong.

[safariknut]

Sounds almost like the way a diesel operates with a glow plug and pre-combustion chamber.

[enjenjo]

It was called a Koenig ignition after the guy who invented it. And it actually worked. It was one of the first transistorized CD ignitions. I have a spark box that works on the same principle, used as an emergency ignition, I have driven a car over a hundred miles on it to get it home.FWIW, Mercedes experimented with it for a while, but had problems with the precombustion chambers, and it never made it to production.