Dinoplex?

Good question ... one of mine doesn't work ,so I've dia-abled both. Car runs fine ... my mechanic say that the spark plugs may not last as long.

 

The Marelli Dinoplex is an early electronic (transistor assisted capacitative discharge) ignition system. Dinos came with two systems built in, the Dinoplex with its own coil and a traditional coil based system. You can switch back and forth, as the Dinoplex system was prone to failure.

Most of the original Dinoplex units have been replaced with more modern guts, or some other type of ignition system. Crane seems to have been a popular replacement, at least from what I've seen here.

Interesting that they would design a system that they knew would fail, and then built in a backup to keep you on the road.

 

Ray, it can be taken out. Your car is running on the backup standard ignition system, no doubt.

 

If you have it, and plan on concours competition, re-installing it is a must.

If you want to make a great daily driver, I'd go with something more modern.

Superperformance has a very nice system.

I know less than nothing about re-installing the Dinoplex. If I was going to do that, and I'm not, I'd leave it up to a good mechanic.

I am replacing my entire ignition system this winter with an electromotive system.

http://www.electromotive-inc.com/products/xdi.html

 

That's really cool Dave. Keep us updated on this swap. And thanks for the workshop manual.

Manny

 

No problem.

Got the unit from Nick @ Nick's Forza Ferrari.(Fcat Sponsor) He has been invaluable with advice, pix, etc. He's never done one on a Dino before, so we are sort of a test platform.

The hardest part is going to be mounting the optical trigger. I'm going to try and get the mechanic to take pictures throughout the process, in order to get them to Nick.

I'll post them here as we progress, and then report back on any performance improvements.

Oh, I have a couple left if anyone else needs one.


DM.

 

An advantage to the Dinoplex being operational is extending the life of the points, because they do not have to take the entire current flow to the spark plugs.

Note that there is an intermediate upgrade where you replace the Dinoplex box with a modern box, but continue to use the OEM distributor and mechanical advance. Cheaper, but you may have to re-set the advance weights. Optical trigger approach is better, but more $.

By replacing the system with a modern setup (Crane, Electromotive, Pertronix, MSD) you get the same advantage at lower cost and better reliability.

There have a number of discussions of this upgrade on Fchat. Try a search on "coil", "ignition", "Dinoplex", and the various vendors.

Good, basic explanation of conventional and electronic ignition (as well as other automotive components) at http://www.tpub.com/content/construction/14273/

 

I have a 365 GT and one of my Dinoplex's quit working. They are mounted on my car in the inner fender well where they can't be seen. I replaced both units with MSD's. I used the original harness going to the MSD's and only had to add one wire in the engine compartment going to each coils B+. They work great, I have lots of spark and the engine starts very quickly. Since I ran the extra wire up in the cowl you can't tell that anything has been changed. I still have one dinoplex that was working when taken off the car if it helps anyone. Your car should have a switch in the engine compartment that says Emergency/Normal. If it's in the emergency position it is running on the coil and points and cutting out the dinoplex. If it's in the Normal position the dinoplex is in circuit.

 

here you go.
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