3 ms·

All gasoline engines have a spark source. A magneto, a distributor/coil setup, or a transistorized driver/coil setup in the case of fuel injected bikes. Nearly

• jpindar 7y ago
  That's simply not true. Every motorcycle that I am aware of (except the old ones with a magneto) has spark plug wires that go directly from a coil, sometimes one per cylinder, sometimes one (with two outputs) for every two cylinders, to the spark plug. They do not go through a distributor. The low voltage wires come from either an electronic module or a set of points (typically one set of points for each coil) which are mounted to one of the crankcase covers, not in a distributor. And while the ignition cam may or may not be near the alternator or generator, it has nothing to do with it functionally.
  • jpindar 7y ago
    Interesting, after some research I find that a few very old motorcycles - Indians and Ariels - did have distributors. But these are a tiny minority as compared to all the Harleys and British and Japanese bikes in the world. Also, I forgot that some old Harleys have the points in a housing sticking up above the crankcase. It's debatable if this should be called a distributor though, since the spark plug wires don't go anywhere near it.