What does a coil do?

[Matt Timion]

This is for my n600 sedan.

I posted pictures of my engine bay to another n600 sedan owner and he said my coil had been relocated. I cannot figure out for the life of me where my coil IS however. Also, what does it do? I think it works like a distributor to ignite the spark plugs, but I could be wrong.

Here is the picture:

[img]/files/gassavers/n600/engine_bay.jpg[/img]

here were his exact words:

"The coil needs to be mounted in front. the yellow ground wire is right by where the coil mounts. (looks like the coil may have been remounted by the air cleaner).

Also looks like your vacuum advance has been adjusted to the limit of it's travel. This is indicative that the screws mounting the points and condenser are too long and causing a problem. "

Can anyone take my picture and show me where the vacuum advance is, as well as the coil, points, and condenser? Sorry for the lame questions. I usually only have to be taught once.

If that picture isn't big enough I can get a bigger one.

[diamondlarry]

I'm not totally sure where things are on your car but I'll do the best I can. The coil is where the high voltage for the sparkplugs comes from. There shoud be one wire coming into the center of your distributor cap and the two wires going to the plugs. The wire in the center should lead back to the coil Think of it like a transformer. 12 volts runs through the primary and when the points open, the voltage drop causes the electromagnetic force to fall across the secondary creating the increased voltage for the plugs. The points should be located in side the distributor cap. They are anchored to a plate and a(usually a type of fiber) block comes in contact with the distributor shaft. The distributor shaft has lobes on it(in your case two?) that cause the points to open and close. I should add here that points are usually spring loaded. The vacuum advance usually attaches to the bottom of the distributor and has an arm that in some way attaches itself to the plate that the points are mounted on. When there is less vacuum(stepping on the gas) the timing is retarded. More vacuum(cruising) the timing is advanced. Now, this is where my limited knowledge of early Honda's doesn't help much. I don't know where your components are supposed to be mounted or exactly how they work.
Please forgive me if this was overkill on the explanation but I wasn't sure what your level of knowledge was and I wanted to be thorough. I grew up learning this type of thing from helping my grandpa wotk on his cars and working on some of my early cars. Not a whole lot of use for this type of knowledge nowadays. :-(

[Matt Timion]

Uhm, this car doesn't have a distributor. All of the descriptions you gave assume they do. Maybe I should just get that tune-up kit and then find the pieces by sight.

[diamondlarry]

There that darn problem of unfamiliarity again. :-(

[DaX]

Trace where your plug wires are running to. Your coil / points / vacuum advance dashpot should be close to this.

Go here:

link 1

I know the numbers are hard to read, but you may be able to figure out what part is what from the drawing / description.

Also, for your points location and vacuum advance:

link 2

[Matt Timion]

Some bigger pictures