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Mkos,

The pickup coil is literally that - a coil of wire encapsulated in epoxy resin. The reluctor on the distributor shaft has magnetic poles (one for each cylinder, equally spaced). As we all know, when a magnet passes a wire, it creates a small electrical current. If that wire is coiled tightly and many times, the electrical current is stronger. Therefore, the pickup coil and reluctor magnets produce a small current every time a magnetic pole passes the coil. The pickup coil is wired to the HEI module. This small current is used to trigger the HEI amplifier/switch module to turn the ignition coil primary current off, creating a spark as the coil's magnetic field collapses.

The reluctor and magnet are doing basically the same task as an old Kettering ignition breaker point set would do - to signal the coil when to create a spark so that the correct spark plug gets the spark at the correct time.

Not really rocket science...

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Later,
Vader
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"Make Me Bad"
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