Most of you were partially correct about the reasoning behind closing up the spark gap.
High combustion pressures does mean more resistance across the gap. This will obviously as stated earlier require more energy to get across the gap.
From here is were most went wrong. It doesnt leave some power over for the next fire, it doesnt make the next spark build quicker.
Dwell is the time the coil is turned on, and has to be long enough to reach full coil saturation. This means the the full power the coil can deliver.
Obviously as engine revs go up we have less time to achieve this, so our ignition system has what we call dwell extension. At higher RPM the coil is turned on EARLIER, which means the dwell is longer (cant be turned off later as when coil is turned off it fires, this would affect timing).
Most coils with dwell extension (ALL since contact points went) will always reach full coil saturation. This means that if our coil can create 50,000 volts at idle, it will do it at 7000 rpm as well. Now, larger gaps, or high resistance in the leads, HIGHER compression pressures and leaner mixtures is going to use MORE of that 50kv to get the gap to ionise, that is, become conductive, so the spark can jump the gap. We have 50kv there, but we want to use the least amount possible.
The reason for this, is that whatever is NOT used to jump the gap, keeps the spark burning for a longer period of time. More ionisation voltage means LESS spark duration, or time the spark is actually there. The longer the better because the air fuel mix is moving due to turbulance, the longer the spark is there the better the fuel is ignited.
im bored, having a sickie lol
Questions?