<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" Times Have Changed Q: A question from your August 2007 issue got me thinking. A guy with a Kia Sportage asked where the spark plugs and spark plug wires on this car were, and was told that this car did not have a distributor. Is this true? I thought all cars must have a distributor, or at least something that works like a distributor. Can you please explain how a car could run without a distributor? A: Traditional distributors did two things. First, they housed the ignition points that switched the ignition coil on and off to make the sparks. Second, the high-voltage spark traveled back to the distributor where the rotor in turn distributed it to the spark plugs. Many modern cars have no distributor at all. The ignition is triggered by toothed timing wheels spinning with the crankshaft, which is much more accurate than points. Then there are individual coils for each cylinder, fired by the engine management computer. Some engines share coils between two cylinders. The cylinder at top dead center (TDC) of its compression stroke fires normally, and at the same instant the plug in the opposite cylinder also fires at TDC \u2013 on the exhaust stroke. This cylinder has no fuel mixture left to burn, so the spark is simply wasted. A full crankshaft rotation later, the same two plugs fire simultaneously again, but the tables are turned and the second cylinder is filled with fuel/air mixture and lights off. But there is still no distributor. Still No Magic BulletsQ: Will a Flowmaster exhaust system improve performance and gas mileage on a 2006 Honda CRV? A: Yes, but not very much unless you change a bunch of other stuff, too. Help with &amp;quot;HELP&amp;quot;Q: I have a 1997 Toyota Land Cruiser and the audio system isn&amp;#039;t working. I tried to enter the security code nine times, and now it won&amp;#039;t let me go further. The message, &amp;quot;HELP&amp;quot; appears on the display. Any suggestions? A: Unfortunately, now that you&amp;#039;ve tried more than the allowed number of times, you&amp;#039;ll have to take it to the Toyota dealer to have the code reset. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/how-to/a1920/4219507/>