cargotec

hey guys, are all the optic distributors the same, i've been looking on line about them and they all have differant price ranges, from $62.00 to $590.00, since i've got the engine tour down to replace the water pump seal i noticed my distributor has a lot of slop in the shaft, i don't want to cut any corners with this, thanks for reading this and thanks for any reply's

jloshotz

You need a Vented Optispark, 95-97, Assuming motor is original. Yours should be pin driven, (your profile lists 97?) 93-94 Camaro Z28 used a spline drive. If you can clearly see the end of the camshaft through the timing cover opening, you indeed need a vented opti. You should be able to see the pin that drives the opti protruding from the end of the camshaft as well. The 93-94 Camaro LT1 timing cover has a very small hole and seal, in which case would utilize a non-vented spline driven opti that is driven off the cam center. Hope this helps!

cargotec

thanks for the reply, my distributor has 2 hoses going to it, one is vacuum and he other to my air intake, but is there one better than the other is what i am asking

Injuneer

Do you mean what is the correct way to hook up the hoses? Shoebox has the answer:



If you mean which is better - vented or unvented, the vented Opti's used on the 95-97 engines is preferred. You would have to change several things to install an unvented unit in a 97, and would end up with a downgrade from what you have now.

If you mean is any Opti better performance wise, the only smart purchase is a GM product, either AC Delco, GM Performance Parts, or Delphi. Anything else will hve a higher rate of failure. The cheap ebay stuff are Chinese ripoffs, often defective right out of the box. Other brands like Cardone, Accel, Rich Porter, auto chain rebuilds, have very high failure rates. The MSD is close in quality to the GM parts, but has it's own quirks, including a "variable timing" feature that has no zero reference.

All of them are prone to the rotor screws backing out, allowing the rotor to fall off, so you need to open a new unit up and Loc-Tite the rotor screws before installing it.

By "slop in the shaft" do you mean the rotor shaft is wobbly? There is no drive shaft on the vented Optis, as indicated in the post above. Only the unvented Optis are driven by a shaft.

cargotec

Fred, the dist. is pin drive, but what i was saying is the shaft that the rotor rises on has some side yo side movement

Injuneer

Bearing is shot. That requires a new distributor.

cargotec

hey guys i found that the distributor was bad, got one from Auto Zone, she runs great, hey, thanks again to all of you for your reply's

Injuneer

Hopefully it lasts. Anything other than the GM part seems to have a life expectancy directly proportional to the cost.