Automobile
Some aviation engines as well as some early luxury cars have had dual-plugged systems with one set of plugs fired by a magneto, and the other set wired to a coil, dynamo, and battery circuit. This was done to improve engine efficiency without sacrificing reliability. Magnetos were once considered a more reliable ignition source, but have the disadvantage of having fixed timing. This means that the timing must be a compromise setting, which is neither the best for low RPM nor the best for high RPM. On the other hand, battery ignition systems have almost always had a timing advance system which can set the timing to the best setting for the speed the engine is turning, improving power output and fuel efficiency. As the reliability of battery ignition systems improved, the magneto fell out of favor for general automotive use, but may still be found in sport or racing engines.
Read more about this topic: Ignition Magneto
Famous quotes containing the word automobile:
“The westerner, normally, walks to get somewhere that he cannot get in an automobile or on horseback. Hiking for its own sake, for the sheer animal pleasure of good condition and brisk exercise, is not an easy thing for him to comprehend.”
—State of Utah, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“For a woman to get a rewarding sense of total creation by way of the multiple monotonous chores that are her daily lot would be as irrational as for an assembly line worker to rejoice that he had created an automobile because he tightened a bolt.”
—Edith Mendel Stern (1901–1975)
“I shall not bring an automobile with me. These inventions infest France almost as much as Bloomer cycling costumes, but they make a horrid racket, and are particularly objectionable. So are the Bloomers. Nothing more abominable has ever been invented. Perhaps the automobile tricycles may succeed better, but I abjure all these works of the devil.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)