Owner guide manual

The Electrical Components of an Engine

All vehicles produced from 1996 onwards are considered electronically controlled. This means that the only true mechanical part is the core engine itself. All other aspects are controlled by electronics in one way or another. There are hundreds of electronic components on each engine, but only a few are key components that perform major functions.

Alternator

The alternator is a key component of the engine and the entire vehicle as it converts the movement of the engine into the electricity the vehicle needs. It converts the movement utilizing a belt that connects to the main pulley of the engine. That belt turns the rotor (a coil of wire wrapped around an iron core). The rotor has 12 volts of power coming form the battery to create a magnetic field. When this rotor spins, the magnetic field creates an electrical current through the three stators (coils of wire along the casing of the alternator). This electricity is then passed through diodes to convert it to direct current and a regulator that senses the vehicles power needs and adjusts the output accordingly.

Starter

The starter is a high-powered electrical component that cranks the engine at start up. When the ignition key is turned, the gear inside the starter is pushed outward onto the flywheel and spun. This spinning action turns the engine by way of the flywheel spinning. Once the key is released, the gear is retracted into the starter housing, and it stops spinning.

Coil

The 12 volts that the battery puts out are not nearly enough power to ignite fuel; a vehicle needs at least 10,000 to 15,000 volts to perform this task. This is where the coil comes into play. The ignition coil has a series of copper wire windings around an iron core. This creates a strong magnetic field which takes the 12 volts from the battery and converts them to upwards of 40,000 volts. That voltage is then sent to the spark plugs. There are three types of coils. The older style has one coil that sends power to a distributor then to the plugs. The replacement for that was a more direct system where the power went straight from the coil to the plugs by way of wires. The newest and most efficient is the coil-on-plug. In this system, each individual spark plug has its own coil resting on top of it.

Sensors

Two of the main sensors in your engine are the camshaft position sensor and the crankshaft position sensor. Both of these sensors perform similar tasks, just with different components. The camshaft opens and closes the intake and exhaust valves, so the computer must know if the camshaft has the right valves opened at certain times. The camshaft position sensor lets the computer know this information. The crankshaft is what regulates the up and down movement of the pistons inside of the cylinder. The computer needs to know the position of the crankshaft, the RPM of the crankshaft and misfire information.The crankshaft position sensor relays this information to the computer.