So the other day I was warming up the Camaro and noticed a sweet smell after a bit....water pump is leaking.

Well....the car has 100k miles on it, and at some point I would like to run nitrous.....so I think I should should do something with the distributor while the water pump is off. Here is what I have come up with so far....I work for a Chevrolet dealership and O'Reily Auto Parts, so I get a bit of a break on parts.

#1 Do nothing. $0.
Cheap.

#2 OEM cap and rotor. $110.

#3 MSD cap and rotor. $150.
The MSD stuff really isn't much more than stock, but is it worth it?

#4 New OEM distributor. $285.

#5 MSD distributor. $515.
You can vary timing by +/- 5 degrees, might be handy for the nitrous.

#6 MSD coil, rotor, cap, wires, and NGK plugs. $300.
Thinking about going this way.

#7 MSD complete ignition (distributor, coil, box, harness, wires, and NGK plugs). $925.
Sounds pretty much foul proof. How does the PCM take to not seeing an ignition being ran?

#8 Delteq setup. $700.
I like the idea of having DIS, but some of the adjustability is taken out.

#9 LS1 Ignition from Bob Bailey. $700.

Other than the leak, the car runs fine......but it does appear to be orginal, it does have some miles on it, and might see nitrous. At the very least I'm putting new plugs and wires on it.

What would you do?

 

look into option #10 - LT1 EDIS
-its a little complicated and you would have to round up your own parts but I wouldn't think it would cost more than a new opti. It looks like it would take a little thinking to figure it all out too

http://brian-esser.com/?page_id=24

Best of all, no high voltage spark going through the opti, instead coil packs. Still would need part of the opti for fuel injector pcm stuff.

 

I would go with the MSD coil, rotor, cap, wires, and NGK plugs. $300. Make sure that when you put the water pump back on that you seal it very good. If you dont the seals will break lose and start slinging water on the distribitor and short out. Me and my friend know that from experience.

 

How about new opti, better coil, and a Mallory 685 ign. box for the nitrous? Besides the regular tune up stuff, plugs, wires, etc.

 

To help keep cost down, I think I might hold off on getting a box.....I can always add that later, if and when I get nitrous.

 

Not sure how practical that is. You're driving down the street on your NA tune, see someone you want to run with N2O, and have to get out and go under the hood and adjust the timing on the MSD????? The more practical solution is an external retard box.

Do a "search" on the MSD Opti. The reviews are still "mixed" at this point.

What do you mean by "how does the PCM take to not seeing an ignition being ran"? Do you mean you would buy a conventional MSD rear mount distributor, have the intake drilled and shimmed for it, and somehow stuff it under the cowl? The PCM will not run the engine without the low resolution pulse from the optical sensor in the Opti. It needs that to time the sequential injectors, and without seeing it, shuts down the fuel system. I've seen at least one setup that claimed to have stuffed the optical sensor into a conventional distributor, so it may be possible, but at that point you will have traded your high precision, computer controlled ignition system for a conventional distributor with limited timing adjustments.

What "adjustability is taken out" with the Delteq?

Best solution in my mind - I've been running 8 LS1-style coils in direct fire for 7 years now (using an aftermarket ECU). But you still need a healthy Opti optical sensor to make it work. If your Opti has 100K miles on it, its likely the bearing has a bit of slack in it, and that affects the optical sensor.

 

I don't see why you couldn't run the external box and the MSD opti....that way you can adjust timing to the best spot without nitrous and have the box set it to the nitrous setting.


First off...why would anyone want to put a conventional distributor under the cowl? I don't know how you even came to the conclusion thats what I was thinking.

I meant was......what does the PCM do when the factory ignition side of things is not there anymore (like when you put on a Delteq or coil-near-plug). I guess I'm not real sure how add-on ignitions are wired....perhaps its just spliced in and everything is happy?

Can you reprogram their black box with different spark curves? You can at least do that with the factory ECM and some sort of programmer.


I might try coil-near plug....it would be a good way to go....and cost doesn't seem to be different really. But then again, I might just stick with the MSD stuff....some of the auto-xing groups don't like to see add on coils and such under the hood for the near stock classes. MSD is at least stock appearing.

 

That's basically what I was telling you. There is no advantage in having the MSD Opti timing adjustment in that scenario. You set up the correct NA timing in your PCM tables, and use an external box to pull when you spray. The timing adjustment in the MSD would seem to offer the ability to adjust cam timing, and correct for the offest without changing all the ignition timing table values to compensate.

whooooo.... I was trying to understand what you were asking... it wasn't very clear to me. I didn't intend to insult you or **** you off. We get the question here regularly in how to switch to a conventional distributor in an LT1. Some people are "old school"

With the Delteq and the LTCC you are still running off the timing tables in the PCM. The external box (Delteq or LTCC) is simply directing the ignition pulse from the stock PCM to the correct coil driver, instead of the stock IC Module which would fire the stock coil 8 times per cam revolution.

 

Hey that's a really interesting read. Has anyone attempted this? I wonder why its not a more popular option.