My car is a 94, non vented opti. The opti seal was bad so i took it off to change it, got it swapped out, put the opti back on with the key lined up on both sides of the splined gear. (only goes in the motor one way) I was very careful to make sure of this because, as we all know, the opti can be installed in any direction even if the key isn't lined up with a bit of force.

I went to start it and it just sputters like only one cylinder is firing. So the timing was obviously off. I brought the car to TCD on cyl#1, then took the cap off with the rotor still on and the rotor was pointing to cyl #8 ish....

So despite where the keys were I took off the opti, spun it so the rotor was on #1 and put it all together. Went to start it and heard a super loud backfire and then same thing, running like it's on 1 cyl.

Yes I have searched the crap out of this and I found a lot of info regarding the newer cars with the dowel pin but not so much regarding the spline drivin opti other than peoples cars not starting and others telling them to index it.

If the car is at TDC and the rotor is pointing at cyl #1 shouldn't it start

I am out of ideas so if anyone can shed some light on it let me know. I am a bit of a rookie so I apologize for any incorrect terms used and posting yet ANOTHER opti issue.

 

Are you sure u have the plug wires on the correct terminals?

 

I have checked it about 40 times.

 

Tell us more about what happened, What lead you to change the opti? Did you have any fault codes?

 

Why was the opti removed in the first place? Was the car running perfectly when removed? Have you checked all the connections that were removed to sure there is no new damage to them? I am always careful to mark the opti so as to have it in the same direction upon reinstallation. Did you take the opti apart at any point to check the screws or anything?

 

 

What method did you use to determine that #1 was at TDC?

 

#1 goes to TDC 2 times during the 4-stroke cycle. If you want to see TDC just after the cylinder fired you have to pull a valve cover and watch to see if the intake rocker moved just prior, then follow it until TDC. Otherwise it MAY be 180 degrees off and you put it at the top of the exhaust stroke which will cause all sorts of spitting and popping out of the exhaust.

 

I'm aware of how the 4-stroke cycle works.... just making sure the OP is, because that would have explained the paradox if it was not done correctly. At TDC, neither valve should be open.

 

The comment wasn't directed at you. I was saying that if the piston at #1 is at TDC it could be either right where he wants it or 180 out.

 

Ok, so here is what happened. The car was running fine, until one day under a load (not WOT but now driving like a grandpa) it would miss. Just once or twice. Then it progressively got worse. So with the car having 150k on it (I have owned it since it had 109K) i thought I would change the plugs and give it a tune up.
When i took the plugs out they were NGK platinum plugs. I know this because I checked the part number on them when I went to purchase new ones. The plugs remeved sold for like $13 a plug and after doing reasearch I went with the TR55s. Changed it out and still had the same problem.
That night I opened the hood to see if I could see the plug wires arching and sure enough they were. A couple of weeks later my OVC kit came from thunder racing so I put those on and returned the plugs for a new set considering the fact that the car had run with the other plugs a bit and I just wanted the piece of mind.
New plugs, new wires, and it still had issues under load. So I took off the opti and checked inside it. The cap was extremely worn and the edge on the rotor that passes the nipples was worn enough to where the it was loose. So I put on a new cap and rotor. Car started and would idle but still missed.
Fuel pressure was checked and is good. I HAD to drive the car like this despite the issue for work. I drove it slow and then the idle began to get barely jumpy, then the car died one day after letting off the gas and pushing the clutch in to stop at a light.
It wouldn't always do this but then it got progressivly worse as well. It got to the point where, at idle, it would jump up to like 1300RPM then drop and catch itself just before it died at like 5-600.
I took it to the dealer to see if they could find out what it was. It wasn't throwing any codes and if it was I didn't have a scanner nor did any of my local shops, only OBDII's.
Dealer didn't find anything except my "intake leak" below my throttle body that he plugged. Turns out that was just the throttle body bypass tube. DON"T GO TO THE DEALER EVER!!!... if you didn't already know that.
Took it to a tuner that lives her locally and we changed the IAC settings a bit to compensate for the bigger throttle body (52MM) and it would then idle but was still missing under load and there was some sort of rattle that had started to happen when it would miss. The knock sensor would pick it up and pull timing. So I wanted to see if that was my miss but it wasn't. We made it so it couldn't pull any timing and same thing. All the sensors check out and are reading how they should.
I am planning on getting a new car so I was just gonna drive it but the opti seal was leaking so I wanted to change that and then I was just gonna drive it until I had a new car so I could rip the motor out of mine and rebuild it, then start over.
So I took the opti off to change the seal, changed it, put the opti back on (indexed with the splines right where they were supposed to go) and it wouldn't start. took off the cap, blah blah blah hence this post. I spun the motor so it was on the compression stoke with the plug out stuck a wire down there so I could feel the piston come up to TDC on compression stroke, indexed opti to cyl #1 and still no go.
I'm worried about why it won't start now, not the noise or rattle. It needs to run first.