what's with magneto's?

what exactly do they do? i did a search and came up with primarily magneto magazines. do they make your car perform better? i don't know a thing about them.

_Travis

 

Magneto ignition is primarily for vehicles that don't cary a battery. Lawn mowers, motorcycles, etc...that are pull or kick started usually use magneto ignition.

A lot of older cars used magnetos because they wer cranked to start them. We're talking Model T era...and pre electric lights, etc..

Many race cars still use magneto distributors. A lot of ignition power can be made with a mag. Look up some of these names:

Vertex

Joe Hunt

Mags R Us

 

Magneto's make a good spark in high compression, high revving engines.
One reason for their popularity back in the day.
Battery ignitions in the high revving SBC didn't cut it too well.

Bad part about magneto's is their weak spark at cranking rpm.
Not too much of a problem in a well tuned, well maintained engine.

With the high powered battery ignitions we have nowadays, mags aren't really needed.

Still though, not much cooler than a Vertex sitting on a Hemi in a Deuce....

 

Just FYI: a top fuel dragster (nitro) uses 2 MSD 44 magnetos. Each one puts out 60,000 volts which isnt' all that remarkable, but they do it at 44 amps. These cars have enough voltage in the ignition to kill a horse.
I always thought that was cool.

 

Reliability is another factor. Few parts to fail. Electronic ignitions will sometimes fail very suddenly. That's the main reason that piston aircraft still use mags. Even then, they use 2 so that there is redundancy.