The timing is probably way off because the Opti or the cam was installed incorrectly. Alternatively, plug wires may be crossed. It's something like that. A huge vacuum leak is also possible.

Rich

 

I vote for a vacuum leak, mine did exactly this one time when i was changing the egr and removed some vacuum lines, got them all back on but one, realized it after i went to crank the car and it idled at 3000 rpms and then just died after a sec. It would crank back up and repeat that little trick all day without a hitch, but i found it after a couple minutes.

Of all the things mentioned in this thread, thats the easiest, and imo the only thing that will consistantly make the car idle horribly fast. Crap timing and a cam being off usually make a car pretty hard to start, much less make it run fast but i wont say it cant happen.

 

what all vaccum lines should i check for? i started the motor back yesterday and it seems like the tb is not sucking in at all so that would be consistent with the vaccum leak.

 

did it throw any codes? When you pulled the water pump off did you get any water on the opti spark?

 

it did not throw any codes but i only had the motor running for about a minute. I am going to take the opti off the car and make sure the splines lined up right and i did not force it on the wrong way, and then put it back together and look for vaccum leaks.

 

ok maybe a little more information here might help. when the car did start and rev high was it smooth, or did it seem to have a miss

before you go ripping your car back apart check the simple things, like every vacuum line connected to the motor

and check to make sure your coolant temp sensor is hooked up

 

Along with this, if it was smooth when it was initially running at 2000 and it progressively got worse, your rockers may not have been adjusted correctly. This happened to me once when I forgot to tighten the posi-locks on the rocker nuts. They backed off after only a couple minutes of running, and stuff got all whacked up along with 2 bent push rods.

 

when the car first started up it reved to 2000 rpm and sounded really good but it was pushin out black smoke from the pipes, I just went out in the shop a little while ago and noticed that the water pump was leaking a little. I got under the car and noticed that i left one of the bolts out of the pump, so i searched in the shop for it and tried to put it in and it felt like it was hitting the block so i took the pump off and when i was taking the pump off the first time a bolt snapped off in there. When i was putting it back together i just thought it was a guide stud for the water pump to go back on, but yet again i was wrong, so i am going to go ahead and pull the opti since i am more than half way there now.

 

hey guys, i pulled the opti and it looks like a little anti freeze might have found its way into it. Would this cause the symptoms that i was telling yall about? Also i started looking at new opti's and it looks like for the 92-94 unvented opti's the cam dowel needs to be shorter than the 93-97 vented opti cam dowels? Is this correct because i did not cut my cam dowel down from the height it was shipped to me at.

 

timing is off

 

ok. i just answered answered my question about the cam dowel. When i pulled the timing cover off i saw a few little shavings of metal and i looked closer and the cam dowel dug out a hole around where the opti going on the timing cover...What the heck can i do now besides pull the cam and get a new timing cover? can i cut the dowel down while its in the car?
need advice badly!!!

 

Absolutley. Cutoff wheel. Just mask off any open areas that you dont want sparks to go. Dont take too much off either. Take alitle off then put antiseize on the tip of the dowel. Slide the opti back in all the way and then remove. Check and see there is antseize in the hole on the opti.

 

ok. i already cut a small amount off of the dowel. I will tell yall what happens.

 

what year is your car? It seemed the latter got the longer dowel pin. I cut the dowel to correct spec before putting in. I just matched up new cam to old cam end to end until flush with each other. I would check the damn timing marks again while being that deep in the mess.

 

In his second post, he told us it was a 93. Unfortunately, unless you go back and read the entire thread, you probably wouldn't have picked up on that. I suspect a lot of people don't even attempt to help when they see the basic info about the car is not in a "signature".

Can't understand why people refuse to use the signature field, when it can contain the critical info required to help solve the problem.