The heart of any car’s ignition system is the spark plug. This little device may seem insignificant, but it is quite an important player in your car. It’s an electrical device that goes into the cylinder head of your combustion engine.
Its main purpose is to ignite compressed fuels (gasoline, ethanol or liquefied petroleum gas) with an electric spark. The electricity it forces into the system is of a very high voltage and travels across the gap. It can be anywhere from 40,000 to 100,000 volts.
Using a ceramic insert, it isolates the spark only to the tip of the plug. These have an insulated center electrode which is connected by a heavily insulated wire to an ignition coil. Some of the earliest patents for spark plugs belong to Nikola Tesla, Richard Simms and Robert Bosch.
When it comes to spark plugs, it is important to know what kind of heat range your car requires. There are basically two types: the cold plug and the hot plug. The hot plug is designed with a ceramic insert with a smaller contact area, and it gets hot fast. Cold plugs have a broader contact area so they run cooler.
High performance engines usually require colder plugs as these generate more heat. If a spark plug gets too hot too soon, it could cause pre-ignitition before the electronic spark is produced. This results in the knocking effect and may cause damage to your car. If it is too cold, it electrically conductive deposits may form on the insulator which would short out the spark current.
Aside from the temperature, spark plug gaps are another consideration. A spark plug gap gauge may be used to determine the right type for your car. A narrow gap may give too weak a spark to ignite the fuel air mixture. If the gap is too wide, on the other hand, the plug might prevent a spark from firing or may miss at high speeds. If a spark plug fails to ignite intermittently, it will affect engine power and fuel efficiency.
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