my car is running rough now i have found 2 spark plug wires arcing and replaced the plug and the wire but now it still runs rough my question is can a opti go partially out or do they just go completely out ?

 

Arcing will not usually cause damage to the opti. There is a low voltage feedback side of the opti that is not effected by the high voltage side of it.

The high voltage side is similar to other distributors with the exception of the opti being a "correct-a-cap. It puts the even number cylinders on one side and the odd cylinder contacts on the other. This causes the leads or traces inside the plastic to come very close to one another. Over time as the cap is exposed to environmental conditions, the least of which isn't a constant barrage of Ozone, it can deteriorate and cause issues. However, the contacts will more likely corrode and give poor current flow problems long before the cap material degrades.

 

If you think about it, every spark plug wire is grounded and arcing...at the spark plug. This constant arcing has no effect on the opti as it's what it should be doing in the first place.

 

remember when putting in spark plugs make sure their seated correctly in depth otherwise you could have a misfire possibly i think with the factory heads they had a certain torque when being put on when using the specified spark plugs. i did it but its been a while. Also with all of the problems ive had in the past the haynes manual i bought from autozone really helped me to find all of my problems cause it has like ten pages of just troubleshooting