Hey Guys, I had this experience a couple of days ago and it took me by surprise. I was driving through some canyon roads and finally had a clear stretch of relatively straight road. So I floored the throttle in second gear. I wanted to take it right to redline but as it reached the redline and as I was about to step on the clutch pedal, the lovely Dino music went all flat and I lost power. I had another opportunity a bit later so I tried it again, and it did the same thing. A third time it happened but in 3rd gear. My Dinoplex has been gutted and updated by the previous owner so I don't know what's in there. What might be happening on my car? I'm pretty sure it's not fuel related. But what do I know? Another thing I noticed that really scared me this weekend. As close as I could describe it is the smell of burnt toast. It's been a long time since I've had burnt toast but that's the closest description I can find. I was driving and it was very hot out. I wasn't riding the clutch or anything like that. It was stop and go traffic on PCH. I came to a stop and I noticed the odor. I pulled over at the first opportunity and looked in the engine compartment, then the trunk, then the spare tire compartment. Nothing! But the smell was still there. After I reached my destination (only a short distance from my check point). I let the car sit for about an hour. I drove the car home and at first there was still a very faint odor as I started the car. But then by the time I got home, it was gone. Oh, I forgot to mention that I do have a small oil leak on the passenger side if that sparks any ideas. And lastly, might someone please post a pic of the support strut for the spare tire compartment cover? When I checked for the source of the odor, I noticed that the support strut was no longer attached to the cover. I don't know what bolt/nut combination is used there. I'm assuming it vibrated off. Thank you all very much for any assistance, Manny
Not long after I got my car, I experienced a similar loss of power problem. It turned out the car had the incorrect fuel pump.
G,day Manny,Could your smell be break related heated discs maybe?if you go to superformance and click onto body panels this will show you a picture of the spare wheel lock down nut,hope this gives you an idea of what your looking for.
I have an MSD hidden away in my Dinoplex. When I first installed it, it had a rev limiter at about 7000 RPM and I thought that wouldn't be much of a problem. However, the rev limiter acted like a soft-clip circuit in an amplifier and it in fact started acting up as low as 4500 to 4800 RPM - my Dino would start to lose power and then it would backfire. I pulled the rev limiter out but had to put another one in - this time the limiter was set for about 9000 or so RPM, supposedly. No problems since then. But, if you never experienced this before when driving your Dino with the same level of enthusiasim, I would suspect it is something else - like bad gas, fuel filter, or a fuel pump. With respect to a bad smell, when I blew up my first Dinoplex, the trunk smelled horrible - like burning plastic in a fireplace along with the smell of fried electronics (which may be the same thing!). Mark
My MSD modified Dinoplex has the rev limiter chip under the plate with holes on the underside of the unit. Take out two screws and the plug in chip is removeable. As to the smell, you might also check your firewall mounted fuse box to see if it is melting down. This happens sometimes with age and weak connections.
another option is your distributor advance weights sticking or not working, that will prevent your revs. I would look at fuel and other things first but my distributor has twice played havoc with my car.
Thanks for all your suggestions guys. I now have things to check out as opposed to scratching my head. I'm getting reacquainted with my car. She's been back about a month now after being away for over 2 years. I don't recall experiencing this rev limiter problem before but I might never have pushed for the redline before either. I noticed this weekend that if I was just shy of the redline, everything was OK. It's only when I'm dead set on kissing the redline that I experienced this problem. So it sounds very likely that it's a chip setting. I'll check it out when I get a spare moment. You guys are great. Thanks again. Manny
Hi Mike, By "havoc", did you experience a consistent loss of power only at redline? I thought about the advance on the distributor but this feels like an electronic limit to me. I won't rule it out but I'll check my Dinoplex first. Thanks, Manny
I agree. My aftermarket limiter gives the impression of the engine going flat and losing power also. If it only occurs at a specific RPM then that probably is the problem.
Sorry, I missed this question. I lost power before redline and could never get to it. Right about 6,500RPM my car would start to lose power and by the time I got to 7,500 it was obvious it would never go higher and there was some knocking in the motor which made me ease up on the throttle instantly. Because my advance weights were sticking, old grease, worn springs, I did not have full advance at the higher revs. The other symptom that I was not aware of until after I fixed it was the sluggishness at getting to the revs from idle, once the weights were fixed, look out the thing revs just by thinking of pushing the gas pedal down. I am sure it does not hurt that I also replaced the carb accelerator pumps while trying to diagnose it.
