Zane..... ..every time yer sparkies haffta jump an "extra" airgap, ya loose some of the KILOVOLTS. Which is why you want your rotor gap inside the cap to be a narrow as you can gittitt without it hittin' ennythang. (so you have more sparkies for the plug gap) This is something you can "see" on one of those big TV screen sparkie machines at those fancy tune-up places. The trick about the "air-gap" for jumping fouled sparkies has to do with "rise-time" of the sparkie pulse. The extra air-gap increases the sparkie rise-time and causes it to jump the sparkie gap rather than leak off the side of the fouled ceramic insulator 'cuz it don't have the time to leak. And as long as you have "excess sparkies volts" yer ok. Remember the shadetree mechanic's test for sparkies is the ability to jump 3/16" air-gap. Inside the engine under compression, once the sparkie volt pulse reaches the "ionization potential", its gonnna jump the sparkie gap. And any excess sparkie volts just go with the flow across the gap.
Remember, yer sparkie system is designed with EXTRA SPARKIES to allow for normal wear and deteriation. Every 0.001" extra sparkie gap costs about 1-KILOVOLT extra sparkies to jump the gap. (which is one reason to keep yer sparkies gap checked for N's = 0.025") The normal "arcing" of the ignition points as they open, causes surface resistance to be generated which is one reason you need to replace yer points every so often, because the points resistance reduces the coil AMPS and the magnetic field that collapses to enduce the secondary SPARKIES. Your condenser is there to suppress that points-arc, but it can't completely. Yer always gonna get a points-arc when they open. And NO, the extra sparkie air-gap that you intentionally introduce to jump fouled sparkies doesn't really effect points wear, it just reduces the available sparkie volts to jump the real sparkie gap. Of course, as you know, the ultimate "cure" for fouled sparkies is the dreaded "engine overhaul". (grin)..... ..... Dell
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