AdsoYo

So I had a thread recently where I mentioned the car ran bad with a new 'thepartsladi' optispark. Today I decided to take it apart and look for anything that was obviously wrong.

This opti probably has a maximum of 2 minutes of engine running time on it along with dozens of attempted starts.

The cap had all this brown dusty stuff in it.





And it looks like it might have come from the rotor here. It looks like it was grinding against something big time.



The little disk has evidence of rubbing on it as well. (On a side note I couldn't believe how flimsy that thing was)



It never threw any codes. I think something was either the wrong height or size and caused all the contact. That probably threw off the timing.

Injuneer

Looks like what happens when the dowel pin is too long. Are you the person with the Golen engine that came with a vented Opti?

slopokrodrigez

I agree with Fred. But here's the better question. You posted the above quote in April 2013. You been using it for 4 years and at the top, you posted this "This opti probably has a maximum of 2 minutes of engine running time on it along with dozens of attempted starts."

Begs the question, what happened to the first (1 2 or more opti's)?

This has to be at least the second one. So what's the problem? My car had the original opti on it when I bought it with 140K on it. I only put a cap and rotor on it and sold it that way years later. So why you having problems in less than 25K? Sure looks like a dowel pin issue to me.

Also thepartsladi does not sell those any more. Must tell you something.

AdsoYo

Yes that's me. Interesting explanation! When I installed this opti the mounting holes didn't make contact with the block. There was probably a millimeter of space between the two, barely anything so I thought it was normal. When I put the old one back on it did make contact but I still never thought the dowel pin could actually smash the innards like that.

The opti in this post was my back up. It was actually the first opti I tried when I had the new engine installed back in 2009. At that time it wouldn't start so the shop put another new opti in (the one I've been running all these years). The engine still wouldn't start so they replaced the MAF and it started and ran fine. All this time I thought the opti was fine and the MAF was the issue.

I wanted to try installing this opti again to see if it would resolve my 'cam surge' which I'm not 100% sure that's what it is. Based on all the reading I've done, it seems like the most likely explanation, I just wanted to rule out the opti.

Thanks for enlightening me on the dowel pin guys.

slopokrodrigez

Ding ding ding ding We have a winner. Should have been the first sign when it didn't drop into place.

See this
http://shbox.com/ci/ci289.jpg

Injuneer

As usual, Shoebox has good advice:

Kevin Blown 95 TA

.840 is almost an inch - that is just plain weird.

AdsoYo

Well my dowel pin was no where near 1" long. And my "good" opti fits on it just fine. Main reason I didn't suspect a length discrepancy.

The first few times I tried installing the opti I didn't get the dowel pin in its socket and it really didn't drop into place. There was probably a centimeter of space between the mounting holes and block. That was obviously not correct. When I finally got it, there was probably about a millimeter like I said. I just didn't know it would be such a problem.

I can assure you guys, if I thought that tiny space between the holes and block was going to shred things up in there, I would have been on shoebox's site faster than you can say "catastrophic opti failure".

slopokrodrigez

You know, now that I think about it, since the old one ran fine for so long and actually wasn't bad when you took it off. I don't think your problem is the pin length. I think the bad opti was not assembled correctly.

Think about it. If the pin caused one to go bad in just seconds, why is the other still good after 4 years??????

As far as it not going on correctly, perhaps the cavity the pin goes in had flash around it.

Injuneer

You only ran it for 2 minutes, and it "ran bad".... are you sure you had the dowel in the correct location? If it wasn't in the correct hole, that would account for running bad, the fact it wouldn't seat all the way, and the damage to the Opti.

The stock/OEM optical window disc is "flimsy". The disc from my original 94 unit has the same part # on it. It doesn't need bulk.

AdsoYo

What is flash? Both optisparks looked the same to me.

I'm sure it was in the correct location. When I finally got the dowel pin in the correct hole and there was still that space between the mounting holes, I took the opti back out and purposefully installed it with the dowel pin in the 3 leaf clover-looking area just to make sure I knew what wrong looked like and sure enough there was a centimeter of space again.

Here's a picture. You can see the mark from the dowel pin in the 3 leaf clover area from the first time I tried to install it and didn't realize I wasn't in the hole. Pushed pretty hard there but figured it out after a minute or two of getting nowhere. The mark you see next to the hourglass shaped hole on the bottom... I don't know how that got there.