Conventional ignition coils have one end of the secondary winding connected to the engine ground. In this ignition system, neither end of the secondary winding is grounded. Instead, each end of a coil'* secondary winding is attached to a spark plug. Each cylinder is paired with the cylinder that is opposite (1/4, 2/5, 3/6). These 2 plugs are on companion cylinders and on top dead center at the same time. When the coil discharges, both plugs fire at the same time to complete the series circuit. The cylinder on compression is said to be the event cylinder and the one on exhaust is the waste cylinder. The cylinder on the exhaust stroke requires very little of the available energy to fire the spark plug. The remaining energy will be used as required by the cylinder on the compression stroke. The same process is repeated when the cylinders reverse roles. This method of ignition is called a waste spark ignition system.

Since the polarity of the ignition coil primary and secondary windings is fixed, one spark plug always fires with normal polarity and the companion plug fires with reverse polarity. This differs from a conventional ignition system that fires all the plugs with the same polarity. Because the ignition coil requires approximately 30 percent more voltage to fire a spark plug with reverse polarity, the ignition coil design is improved, with saturation time and primary current flow increased. This redesign of the system allows higher secondary voltage to be available from the ignition coils - more than 40 kilovolts (40,000 volts) at any engine RPM. The voltage required by each spark plug is determined by the polarity and the cylinder pressure. The cylinder on the compression stroke requires more voltage to fire the spark plug than the cylinder on the exhaust stroke. It is possible for one spark plug to fire even though a plug wire from the same coil may be disconnected from the companion plug. The disconnected plug wire acts as one plate of a capacitor, with the engine being the other plate. These 2 capacitor plates are charged as a spark jumps across the gap of the connected spark plug. The plates are then discharged as the secondary energy is dissipated in an oscillating current across the gap of the spark plug that is still connected. The secondary voltage requirements are very high with an open spark plug or spark plug wire. The ignition coil has enough reserve energy to fire the plug that is still connected at idle, but the coil may not fire the spark plug under high engine load. A more noticeable misfire may be evident under load. Both spark plugs may then be misfiring.