does g.m. sell a replacement cap and rotor for the opticrap because I want to replace mine because it fell on the floor and has damaged the cap and when I re-installed it my car doen't quite run right. Its not reving very well and wants to stall out also has some hesitation when I give it gas.Car ran very well before but i had an oil pan leak to fix.I do have a msd cap and rotor but I am hesitant to install it because of all the bad press it has recieved,I bought this c and r several years ago so I am not sure if it is the latest version,it has 2 round seals and i've read about a square one can anyone tell me if this is msd recent version.i am running the car without the water pump in case i had to remove the distributer and only sensor not hooked up is the water temp. any help would be appreciated.

 

I would use the MSD cap and rotor that you already have.

 

yeah I installed on my dist. but its rubbing on the isolator when i spin it, and msd doesn't give you torque settings in their instructions.I looked at it and the rotor is within .010 to.015 of the isolator on one side so I may have to file it a little bit to clear.

 

So you're trying to track down a misfire with the water pump off and the PCM coolant temp sensor unplugged?

Hm.

Put on the MSD cap and rotor and use the square seal (call them up and they will sell it to you), install the water pump AND connect the sensor, and put it all back together the right way.

 

I'm not tracking a misfire its running o.k. but won't idle after about 5 sec. and didn't rev good ,like normal.I have done it this way before and its ran good.I am not trying to drive it that way,just wanted to check for oil leaks before i put the water pump back on and fill it with coolant.
I think I found an issue with the installation of the hub,I must not have got it on tdc.when i am on tdc should the pin for the cam be at the 9 o'clock position?

 

What "hub" are you asking about?

The crank damper/pulley hub can go on in any position. That's why GM didn't put a key in it. If for some reason it was tweeked for a minor balance trim after the engine was assembled, you might notice a tiny vibration, but its not going to cause the problems you listed ("doen't quite run right. Its not reving very well and wants to stall out also has some hesitation when I give it gas.").

 

thats what i thought but wasn't quite sure,so I wanted to ask.Never had it run like this,maybe its the opti.Had to do some deburring on the rotor it had some casting flash on it,so now its not rubbing.Will install it tomorrow and see what happens.thanks

 

Sounds like there was a lot of work going on beside replacing the Opti cap and rotor. You don't have to pull the damper hub to do that. What all have you done to the engine immediately preceeding the Opti cap and rotor?

 

yes you are correct,the car is a y-body not an f-body just to clear things.had a bad oil leak after taking the car in last summer to get the air fixed,so after sitting for 6 months I decided to find the leak and fix it.It was leaking from the very front of the pan but its very hard to see because of the cross member so I replaced the timing cover and the oil pan gasket. Ihad the opti sitting on the bench and was uder the car putting the exhaust back on and moved my light to see better and the extension cord pulled the opti off the bench to the floor.It didn't look too damaged and didn't see any cracks so decided to re-use it.put everything back together except the water pump in case I did have a problem,which I did and the car would not idle more then 5 sec,give it gas and it would hesitate,didn't seem to be missing,2 weeks ago when I started this it idled perfect and ran great except for the leak so I didn't think it was bad gas in the tank,Had the msd cap and rotor for quite a while and wanted advise on it,because of all the bad things I had read about it.this was the first time I messed with the oil pan and timing cover and all I want is good advise not smart comments from some forum members who don't think I did it right.I might be wrong but I wouldn't think the water temp sensor being un-plug for a minute or two can cause this problem.Please feel free to comment. thanks

 

With the water pump off, do you have the air inlet duct installed with the MAF and IAT connected?

No need to get irritated.... I was just trying to help?????

 

Hes right man the hub will go on any way and you shouldnt have to take it off to change a distributor. Also you could have put the balancer on the right way. Other than that the distributor goes on one was into that slot so you cant really mess it up because the car wont start if its not in groove. ive been through this before. and about the optispark distributor its a wonderful piece just in a bad spot under the water pump. But its a very fragile piece. Mine went bad and the one true was to tell if its the opti spark distributor is to start the car and let it warm up drive it around the block and when you come to a stop after it being warmed up it will die while your at idle at a stop light usually. this is the one true was to tell also they sell them on ebay for sixty bucks to a hundred which is very cheap because if you buy them from gm itll cost you around three hundred dollars good luck man. any questions let me know.

 

Do NOT even think about buying a "sixty bucks to a hundred" Opti from ebay. Buy a geniune AC Delco (Delphi) unit from thepartsladi on ebay. Anything else, including the "All Ignition" Optis seem to be poor quality.

It's not a balancer, its a damper, and it only bolts to the hub in one position. The three arms on the hub are not equally spaced.

 

I know this about the damper and your porobably right about the opti spark on ebay usually you pay for what you get. I bought mine off summitt racing. The first one i ordered didnt work and i had to send it back then the second one worked fine. If i had those kinds of problems with sum racing equip then the ones on ebay probably wouldnt be a good choice of quality.

 

You might want to spend a bit of time reading the posts, doing "searches", etc. A lot of this has been hashed out many times in threads.