Advanced Spark Diagnostics

Conditions such as faulty/worn spark plugs, leads and coils can be detected through a Laptop based interface with Gill GS8, GS12, EC12 and EC24 ignition control modules.

This can also indicate internal cylinder faults or mismatch between cylinder performance highlighting problems such as burnt valves, localised air leaks and poor combustion.

With Advanced Spark Diagnostics, you can benefit from this technology if you are remote monitoring your engine. You can set maximum and minimum spark voltage and duration into the Gill software, so when the measurements fall outside of the parameters, an error code can be outputted into your remote monitoring equipment. This enables you to actively manage your engine service intervals, to potentially reduce your service costs.

Figure 1 shows a spark trace from a correctly operating cylinder, the first part of the line (a) shows the start of the spark line, this is the point after the initial plug voltage has bridged the gap.

The length of the line is the duration of the spark (b), known as ‘burn time’ or ‘spark duration’. If the line is short (Figure 2) this shows insufficient spark energy exists to maintain the desired burn time. This can be caused by one of the following:

• Loss of spark energy through faulty plug lead (high resistance)
• Fouled/eroded spark plug
• Excessive boost levels
• Excessively lean/rich mixtures
• Insufficient dwell (coil on time)

If the line is too long (Figure 3) this can be caused by the following:

• Faulty spark plug/lead (short circuit)
• Lack of compression (burnt valves, holed pistons etc)
• Excessive dwell

The height of the spark line (c) is also monitored as an indication of healthy cylinder operation. A low spark line indicates similar faults list for the long spark line above, this is due to the voltage required to maintain the spark across the gap being reduced, this may be shown as a combination of low and long spark line.

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