Thread: Diagnosing corrosion on coil pack terminals

In school we always called this ignition system "Waste Spark" because the spark out of one of the plugs is always "wasted"

Our ignition system is why you can't find a miss fire by pulling just the wires and not correctly grounding the cables, it creats an open circuit with 30,000+ volts, it is going to find a path back to the coil, through the wire or back through the secondary windings, or it can jump the coil housing. this can F-up your ignition system, just my word of warning while we are all on this subject

Anybody remember carbon tracks in distributors, they appear on our coils too....

You know, Im glad you defined waste spark, cause I did not know that was why they called it that. Thank you.

I dont think it used the term 'waste spark' or if it did it didnt register with me. But looking at what you posted, it essentially says the same thing when it talks about the second spark being fired but the cylinder being open to the atmosphere.