Dinoplex / MSD

Sounds like you should check your thermal time switch and your vacuum limiting valve.

The thermal time switch controls the starting and warming up process.
You might also check the safety switch. (with the car cold, pull off the connector and drive it)

The vacuum limiting valve bypasses the throttle plate when you take your foot off the gas.
Both together will cause the problems you listed.

As for the MSD, don't get the 6AL. MSD has to modify it for 12 cylinder and they don't do such a good job. I would stick with the 6A. (same unit, no rev limiter)
If you have two distributors you can use two 6AL units set for 6 cylinder operation (should work, I haven't tried it) then you would have rev limiting.

 

Worth a look?

http://www.blackstallionmotors.com.au/bsm_ignitions.html#v12

Works well on the V6

Tony

 

Hi Andrew,
This is a situation I am currently experiencing on my car.
Difficult to start, whatever cold or warm engine.
The issue is currently on the process of being solved. In fact, it turns out there are different areas that might be concerned.
On my car, the relays box was messy, but it has not solved everything. Better, but still hard to start.
Another point, and this is where my contribution is related to the situation you experience, is to check gas pressure.
You know there is an 'pressure accumulator' hope this is the right term - between each of the fuel pumps and fuel filters. midway between the tank and the engine. As far as I understand, pressure plays a key role when starting the engine.
On my car, we suspect these devices to be out of order and we will order new ones this week.
Maybe it is a checking you could dive into on your car.
Hope it helps.
Olivier

 

Olivier,
If you don't see gas leaking out of the drain tube on the accumulator, they might not be bad.
Its rare that they would de-pressurize and not leak.

 

Dear Mark,
Thanks for this piece of advice.
The fact is we discovered a strange thing on the accumulators, located between the main gas filters and the fuel pump. There is a small pipe on the side of each accumulator. It turns out these pipes had been obturated.
The mechanics's hunch was to say there had been a leakage in the past, and the solution had been to obturate the pipes, which sounds strange. This pipe had a role to play.
What you say confirms it.

We've decided to check the accumulators, maybe change some faulty device inside (there are a gas filter inside, a joint ...) and if required change these accumulators.

Thks
Olivier

 

Hope it works out for you.

 

I use (2) MSD 6AL units on my 365 Gt/4 and with zero trouble. Cold starts fixed when going to MSD. I have them rev limited at 6K.
I have no opioion on units without or with rev limiter. The 6AL work great. Highly reccomend this upgrade.

 

All--

Ignition (apparently) is acting up when car gets warm. Starts to cut out all cyls, buck, pop and will stall. If I let it cool maybe 30 mins, starts right up and runs fine...for maybe another hour or so. As evening comes on and it gets cooler, no worries ! SO, thinking it might be the original stock module, mounted underside of hood, right front of engine. Any advice, experience, guidance on converting to electronic ignition for our 12-wire distributor? Pertronix? Mallory? Marelli??? Thanks in advance. EHt

 

On a CIS car if its running too rich it will cause a rolling idle, stalling from a panic stop or even a regular stop. As for the hard restart, a rest pressure leak-down will only effect hot starts. The cold start injector is not effected by this so if your car is difficult to start hot or cold its a combo of things going on.Tackle one problem at a time. Start with setting your HC levels as close to 200PPM per bank, my boxer I set to the high 200's and it solved my stalling problem and my rolling uncontrollable idle at times. Balance the banks vacuum wise, throttle plate positions then HC levels and you wont recognize the car, no stumble, get response and no stalling plus your fuel economy will improve drastically. This wont fix the starting issues though, you need to see where you're losing your rest pressure through.

 

yes add the MSD 6A ,easy bolt on and turf the dinoplex, same symptoms with my boxer before the upgrade.

 

SO, a single MSD 6A ? Dual MSD 6A units for a V-12 single distributor? Just contact MSD and tell them the problem and application???

As far as mixture richness, car DOES leave a carbon "deposit" on rear deck. And I can get light black smoke out of all 4 pipes on a hard, sustained, wide-open throttle acceleration from say, 3500 up to 4500+ rpm. Car WILL idle down on a fast stop, maybe dip to 500 rpm or so for a second, then back up steady at 1000.

Thanks for any assistance on these issues.

EHT

 

Dear all, a Dinoplex story.

Went today to pickup my car after comprehensive service was done. One of the main issues was a hot engine restart problem, which was solved thanks to new fuel accumulators.
Meanwhile, many small things were fixed, a brand new MoT and the car was up and running, ready to go except that there was quite no gas left.

I left the garage and directed to the next station, 1mile1/2 away, to get some gas.
As I waited until someone else finished to fill up its tank, I stopped the engine. Nothing else.
Guess what ? No way to restart the car.

Called back the mechanic, I had the car towed back to the garage and scrutinised : no ignition.

Wiring ok.
Fuses ok.
Solenoid ok.
Distributor : sends what it should send, ok.

So, what if not the Dinoplex ?

The manual tells us there are two possible situations : the swiss fitting and the usual one. The first one includes a revs limitation the second does not have. The car, Monaco then France registered, was delivered new in Italy: unsurprisingly this is the regular fitting. The Dinoplex is made of one box, there is some space left for the revs limit, but nothing fitted there.

I have three questions :
- fchatters are welcome to tell any similar experience and the way it was solved.
- is there a way to check how the dinoplex works ? There is the usual unbearable Dinoplex sound. Can't base a diagnosis on it.
- in case the dinoplex should be changed, how costly is it ? is there any other solution that could be suggested like 'this magnetti marelli thing also fits mercedes-benz Wxxx' (like the fuel accumulators were 450 slc alike) ?

Thanks in advance

Olivier

 

I did some searches on the forum.
There are many posts about Dinoplex.

I don't know what MSd does mean, neither 'point' and I feel my understanding is bad.
I noticed a 365 owner in Germany converted its car to electronic ignition and installed two dinoplex from superperformance.

Other fchatters say that Dinoplex is a 30 years old architecture and should be changed for something better, like MSD-6AL + a factory made change to get the revs limit at the right level.

Basic question of mine : does the so-called MSD-6AL take the place of the Dinoplex unit under the bonnet ?
Why two MSD-6AL instead of 1 Dinoplex. Guess it has to see with 12 cylinders but there is one plug on the Dinoplex, not two so how can two MSDs be fitted ?


Thanks in advance

Olivier

 

As I dig, thanks to the forum's considerable amount of information, I am about to make up my mind :

Call MSD Ignition.
As there is one distributer on the car (some other versions have two) : what we need is one MSD6AL
Tell MSD Ignition to upgrade it before shipping
Order a high vibration blaster coil as well.

Once it is fitted, I'll send some pictures to the forum about the wiring and how this question was solved (... in case it was solved)

Any comment welcome anyway, particularly about a last minute test to check if the dinoplex is really out of order.

Olivier

 

What's with the rev limiter, why can't that be driver controlled?

 

Hi,
You ask whether the car requires one or two MSD. That's exactly what I tried to find out.
I'm about to fit the car with MSD 6-AL. I am to order it this week.
As far as I understand, some cars have two distributors, some others like mine (400 series one 1979) have one distributor.
One distributor means one MSD whereas two mean two MSD.
This is what I understood, maybe I'm wrong.

If I get in touch with someone from MSD that can explain it, I'll give you the contact so you can directly call him.
Good luck

Olivier

 

Check post #15...

Vhttp://ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=165015&highlight=dinoplex

 

Sorry for the typo (V in front of http), post #15 @

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=165015&highlight=dinoplex

 

Olivier, I think the french word for points, concerning ignition, is "vis platinées" (?).
Congrats for your 400, i'm more and more thinking of replacing my early 911 with one glorious v12 like these. Once sorted out they seem to be quite bullet proof.
Good luck with your trouble shooting.
François.

 

Hi, it worked out, thanks.

Anyway, though a lot was already said about Dinoplex, an additional information could be useful to european owners :
My car is a european -(not swiss)- specs car, which means no rev limiter.
Today I called MSD and the technical support said : you need a MSD 6AL+a 12 cyl compliance upgrade if there is a rev limiter on your car, if not MSD 6A will fit and there is no need to upgrade it.
Just ordered. When the car is fitted with this component, I'll tell the forum about the result.

Rgds

Olivier

 

François, thanks for this translation.
Sure, you should think about a 400. I can't explain why these cars are so cheap. You should definitely take the opportunity to buy one.
Olivier

 

To replace the Dinoplex with a MSD unit requires the same number of MDS units as you have distributors. I the case of my 1984 400iA one MSD unit was installed. To keep the car looking original the Dinoplex was left in it's original place and a MSD-6 Off Road Ignition Control (PN 6470) was installed under the right headlight unit. I used this MSD unit because it is weather/shock proof and it is black which helps conceal it's presence. Unfortunately I cannot tell you specifics about how it was wired up because I had Tim Stanford in Ft. Lauderdale FL do it while he was addressing some other issues I was having at the time.

Al

 

Dear all,
Dinoplex :
As I mentioned, MSD hot line people said : 12cyl, no rev limiter ? MSD 6A will fit.

The MSD 6A component was delivered to the workshop (Europe) less than a week later.
As soon as fitted on the car, it has worked.
The tricky point, the mechanic said, was to get back the rpms, but he did it.

I'd like to thank all the fchatters.
Thanks to all the fchatters, Dave, Al, John, Ken and co, this was much easier to solve the different issues. Some of the fchatters have an amazing knowledge of this car.

Some words about the car, 1979 400i auto, 20.000 miles.
I bought the car in 1989 with a friend, through an auction sale. Purchase price was a little bit more than 100 keuros, roughly 150 k$. At this time, people went crazy about any Ferrari. I remember I've put a 'for sale - 270k$' ad on the window, parked the car at the entrance of a 'solo ferrari' auction just for the sake and received one phone call. Then all of a sudden, the wind changed and prices collapsed.
Then some years later, as the value was stuck at a low level and my friend bought other F cars, I became the sole owner of the car.
I stored it safely but I did not use it. In november 07, I decided to use it again. I encountered many problems, I shared some of them on this forum and collected valuable information : wheels were stuck, fuse box slightly corroded, strange relays, no fuel pressure, dirty fuel filters, injection stuck (can be dangerous), ... But the engine was still in top shape, ready to serve.
For now, the car is up and running. I will keep this car. It can be used with a family, not too flashy (the car, not the family). Resale value is at the bottom. My feeling is that value can't go down anymore, I hope I'm not wrong. We all know that some years ago a 250GTE was the perfect candidate for any kind of fancy red reconstruction project. Who would dare it today ? We can expect our 365-400-412 to benefit some regain over the next years.

Again, thanks to the fchatters.

Olivier