Hi guys.. Russ gave me ben's email address, but he hasn't responded.. Posted on Tuesday, October 28, 2003 - 7:18 pm: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contact Ben directly: [email protected] Does anyone have another email address for him or phone #..? or maybe any other electronic ignition kit (optical) I could buy asap..? For a 1977 308gtb. Thanks!! andy
Andy Contact Giovanni at Autosprint in Chicago. He has a neat optical conversion he does to the distribs. Been doing it for ten years. Works well.
Contact a guy name Don King in Ca. 310 606-5695 he did my 77 gtb with a pertronix's unit in 1 dist which triggers both coils. All looks stock.
I went with the Crane Cams XR3000 ignition with Crane PS30 coils, Magnacor wires and NGK plugs. I did the whole job myself and it only cost $500.
Crane Cam system for me, X700 I think, with new coils, $150 never installed from a fellow Fchat member. Put it in myself over a weekend.
Yes, I've noticed Ben is tough to get a hold of sometimes. As an alternate suggestion, FChat sponsor Norwood also does an electronic single distributor conversion and seems to have a good development record. See: http://www.norwoodperformance.com/engine_electronics.htm Hope this helps best Russ
Give Ben some time to respond. I think he is a little slow getting back to people via e-mail sometimes just because he is busy.
Thanks.. So do you think summit auto ? where did you buy the parts? http://www.cranecams.com/ignition/appsf.htm#Ferrari Is the above parts for a 308? Mine is a 77 308gtb.. thanks andy
The 3000-0231 kit is the one I got, you need 2 of them. I looked around for the best price and actually went directly through Crane for the ignition and coils. Went straight to Magnacor for the wires also. I did a lot of research before tackling the job and I decided to go with the XR3000 instead of the XR700 because I wanted the high power coils and wanted to do away with the ballast resistor. I wanted the hottest spark I could get!
Andy, If you decide to go with the Crane ignition, the instructions are pretty good. If you have a good knowledge of automotive repair you should be able to complete it yourself in a couple of days. The XR3000 modules have a cool LED light that signals ignition trigger, this makes it real easy to statically time the engine. Mine started with the first touch of the key after the job was complete. If you have any questions you can write me at [email protected]. If you get in a real bind you can call me and I can talk you through it. I am real happy with my system. With the stock system, I had the low speed points fail on me, which I simply disconnected, then had the car fail to start on a cold day just due to lack of fire! Recently, I started my car, after it had been sitting for 3 weeks, in just above freezing temps; it fired right up and ran like a champ. Here's where I put the Crane ignition: Image Unavailable, Please Login
The Cranes are great. I have 2 XR700s and PS20 Coils that I have been using for 3 years now. They work great plus they are very reasonably priced.
Pete, great job... Not to rag on you but, you picked one of the hottest spots in the engine bay to hang the Fireball control modules.
Dave, Good observation! I did give that consideration. They are mounted near the rear header but you have to admit, the space in a 308 engine bay is tight. Where else do you put them? I looked. I think the XR3000 modules are longer than the XR700's so they would not fit up by the lid support. The engine bay of a 308 does have better air flow than almost any car out there; it is open both on bottom and on top. I had thought about heat issues and considered making a small hole in the duct for the oil cooler to direct some cool air directly at the modules (in fact I still might do that). But the biggest "Go For It" with me was the fact that I live in Maine and it is not like I am about to take any 300 mile long trips through the hot desert. The car gets intermittant use and the longest I have driven it on one stretch is 50 miles. I haven't had any problems.
I have a dual MSD setup, with Pertronix optical triggers. It was set up by Mark Spencer in San Jose when I bought my car. With regard to placement of the Units, He placed them on the leftmost side of the trunk (This is in a GT4). Seems to work well. In retrospect though, I wish I had known about the crane setup when I bought the car, since it appears that it was cheaper/easier to set up. Dom
When I was at Autosprint the other day, Giovanni showed me a 250 where he was running one optical distrib for all 12 cylinders. He'd hidden the XR boxes on the other side of the firewall so that with the exception of one small wire coming out from the distributor, you couldn't tell by looking under the bonnet that it wasn't stock (nor by looking in the cockpit). Quite remarkable.
Pete, any chance you can paste these pics to my thread in Tech Q&A ? or with your express permission, may i do it? thank you. i have no clue why i could not find this thread in the other searches i did ! ?? also, given the fact some time has passed, have you had any issues with heat from your location? thanks !
As far as I'm concerned, any picture I post on FerrariChat becomes public domain and anyone may use the photos in any way they see fit. It doesn't bother me. Go for it! No heat-related problems with the ignition almost 3 years later! Funny you should bring this up now though, last month I went out to start it and it wouldn't fire. I picked up the lid and tried cranking it. With the mounting location that I have, when the trunk lid is open I can see the LEDs on top of the unit while I'm cranking it over just to make sure the control modules are actually triggering the coils. Well I started to crank and saw a wisp of smoke coming from the area of the coils. Shut it off and saw that the wire going to the rear coil was melted. With the use of an ohmmeter I found that the rear PS-60 coil had an internal short to ground. I went to the local discount auto parts store and bought 2 Accel universal performance coils and replaced both PS-60 coils and the power wire that goes between them. When done the car fired right back up and has been running like a champ ever since. So other than one coil shorting out internally, I have had no problems with the ignition whatsoever.
thank you for your help Pete! i did not want to use anyone pics without permission. i am mounting mine on a braket in a similar manner. my GTB has an X brace so i cannot mount both of them side by side there. best. michael
