Just finished installing my new optispark and distributer. Put everything back together right. I went to start it up and i heard a big backfire and smoke came out of the intake. When i took the old opti out i was sure to line up the new one just as the old one was and it slid right in, went on fine no problem. I did turn my water pump a little while it was out of the car but i don't think that would have anything to do with it. Belt is on perfect. I did spray a tiny bit of silacone lubricant on the inatek elbow just to help it slide on but i don't think that would really have anything to do with it. Re-checked the plugs to make sure they were on right, and they are. Now when i go to crank it, it just turns and doesn't even attempt to start. I put some anti-freeze back in as well. I have no idea why it wouldn't be starting. Any suggestions?

 

Recheck the spark plug routing and if you find nothing else, you may need to take it back off and try it again. A lot of people fire up the engine before they put the water pump back on to make sure it works. You should also post the year of your car (like in a sig, would be nice).

 

sorry its a 1994 ill put it in the sig soon, i just re-checked all the wires and they are in right. I guess ill have to take everything apart again and try to re-align the opti. The only thing that was wierd is that i thought i lined it up perfectly and it went on without and trouble and went in flush.

 

I'm guessing from what you said that you pulled the covers off the old and new optis to match the alignment of the rotors; if you did that, and it slid in easily, I would suspect a problem with the new opti, or some sensor connection that got mixed up during reassembly.

If you didn't check rotor alignment, I found it's helpful to do the following: find the orientation of the missing spline tooth in the cam sprocket (a small mirror and a flashlight is the best way to do this), pull the opti cover off and find the orientation of the rotor that will match the missing teeth correctly, then hold the rotor in place, wiggling it around if necessary, while installing the opti. MSD suggested it in the manual for their opti replacement that I got a while ago, and it was a big help. Removing the opti cover unfortunately requires basically an inside-out torx driver; MSD provides a regular torx screw that's tightened into a hex spacer, so that it acts as a hex to inverted torx adapter. I don't know the torx size off the top of my head though.