What is the distributor firing order?
Multi-cylinder gasoline engines require a perfect storm of precisely timed events (air ingestion, fuel injection, valve opening/closing, piston movement and spark timing) just to run. An engine’s distributor can be thought of as the ignition system’s conductor, and the firing order its sheet music.Four-Stroke BasicsThe fuel mixture above any piston in a four-stroke engine is detonated once for every other rotation, either just before or just after the piston reaches the “top dead center” (TDC), or apex, of its travel.Piston SyncWhen the pistons reach TDC is determined by the crankshaft design, but two pistons in each engine will always reach TDC exactly 180 degrees out of sync with the other. If those pistons were to fire in close succession (as in a V-Twin motorcycle engine), the engine would run rough and shake itself to pieces.Timing OrderThe engine’s timing order is usually set up to fire all pistons in a steady, metronomic way, without any very long or short gaps in between.Power