The weapon of the future, the blunderbuss of Buck Rogers, may soon be aimed at the air-fuel mixture inside your "spark-ignition"engine. Yes, after reinventing practically every other element of Old Smokey, the spark plug-virtually identical in its essential form and function to the one patented 111 years ago-may soon be ditched in favor of laser beams.rnFirst let's examine the case against Sparky. Despite laudable upgrades like long-lived platinum tips, computer-controlled coil-on-plug ignition, and even fancy multispark electrodes, there's no getting around a few basic drawbacks: The spark gets generated very near the cylinder wall, which complicates cold starts when all that engine metal is frigid and results in lots of heat transfer to the engine and plug. The flame front alsornhas to travel farther for a complete burn of the mixture. Spark-plug electrodes wear, and providing for easy replacement dictates placing the plug right where bigger valves and direct fuel injectors want to be.
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