Well i have a miss i thought i found the culprite a bad spark plug wire well tempory i taped it with electricly tape i know thats not a good fix but until i could get a new wire,well i did that and i still have a miss now what well then i saw a drip on antifreeze coming from one of my hoses near the TB and it seems to be leaking on top of the water pump i think the opti is dry?? but does an OPTI just go bad. My car has a terrible miss or could the spark plug wire stil be bad???any suggestions would be great...

 

"Electrical" tape is rated at something like 600V.... not much good on a system that generate 38,000V to the plug wires. Replace the wire first.

The Opti is just like a "conventional" distributor, with the added complication of also having an optical sensor. The cap and rotor contacts can burn, moisture and dirt can cause carbon tracking in the cap, the shaft bearing is low quality and can wear out, the harness connector leaks, allowing the moisture to rust the internals and the rust blinds the optical sensor, connector terminals and wire terminals can corrode, etc.

 

Well i will try the wire first..and hope thats it ..I did the old header and water trick to see which clyinder wasnt firing it looked like NO. 4 -6 wasnt firing could the spark plug be arcing and make another wire not work ...this is confusing and does and OPTI work and then kinda not work like only 2 cylinder's not firing???

 

If you have adjacent cylinders misfiring, there's a good chance the wires are cross-firing.

 

Thanks I hope its just the wires im hoping its not the opti can they tell by putting it on a scanner whats wrong?

 

A scan will tell you which cylinders are misfiring and how often. If the misfire is specific to one or two cylinders, you've probably found a wire, plug or injector problem. If its "random misfires" on all cylinders, it'll be the Opti, coil or IC module (or maybe a leaky EGR valve, etc.).

As far as the Opti, if the problem is in the optical section, there are diagnostic codes that will show up... one for the low resolution pulse and one for the high res pulse. If the problem is in the cap/rotor, there are no Opti specific codes to pin it down... you are back to looking at misfires.

 

Thanks for the advice i had Cartek in NJ do all the work so i brought it back to them today they found a couple bad wires due to the headers buring them so i bought new wires MSD's for now i need OVC wires were do i get them and who makes the best wires....