the optispark on my 96 z just went out and was thinking about using a dynaspark for my replacement has anyone used this product or can anyone recommend something better thanks

 

Far as i know it is the top of the line besides the OEM GM one, and they seem to stand behind their product.

 

also looked at the jegs brand any feedback on this one

 

i talked with a gm mechanic and he told me that the ac delco is not the way to go ...the last one he replaced at the dealership for customer he had to order 9 of them before he got a good one...so now what brand do i buy

 

If you are on a budget,Autozone sells them and they have a lifetime warranty. vented opti with a core is 124.99 plus tax..

 

I have such a hard time believing that 9 out of 10 AC Delco optisparks could be DOA. Either he wasn't telling you the whole story or he wasn't getting genuine GM parts. Far and away both the AC Delco optisparks and the Dynaspark are the most reliable.

 

There's also the Chandler Motorsports one's on ebay with a lifetime warranty. I got one, so far so good.

 

I have the MSD one and it's pretty much amazing

 

I'm going to try the Chandler Motorsports one. I've been using the $65 ones off Ebay with good luck. I figure there is no point in spending $$$ on Delco or any other since they all fail at the same rate.

 

I threw a Chandlers Opti in my car last week, working good for the last 150 miles. Time will tell if it was a worthwhile investment, although I bought the lifetime warranty one for $134, pretty good considering Autozones cap and rotor runs $120 and isn't lifetime.

I did notice that the rotor screws were a site smaller Torx bit than the GM version.

-Dustin-

 

What is it about the MSD Opti that you find to be "amazing"?

 

I've never had any problem with the MSD one and i have put 3 or 4 acdelco and others in and all of the failed.

 

sounds like you got a good one, congrats. I've heard of a lot of people having problems with the MSD unit

I've been using the dynaspark for the last 80,000 miles with zero issues thus far, so im all for the dynaspark, not only that but in the event that is does fail dyno-tech rebuilds them for a very reasonable cost (in comparison for a new gm unit)

Another plus for the dynospark, since i have a 94 and originally non-vented, the dynospark is vented and i didn't have to swap out timing covers

 

I had a dynaspark opti and it had corosion inside the high voltage section. Then a optical sensor failure. Also the billet body did not fit the cam cover insert, so, I had to machine the case to fit and index correctly.
The rotor assembly is stock with a single rivet to hold the conductor. They also have speciall fasteners to prevent disassembly of the cap.

I have had many opti failures with others (AC Delco, Summit brand - rotor destruction/ optical encoders/ dirt-fowl).

I have since installed an allignition.com performance series 2 opti (not popular with the guys) since it was 300 dollars. It's been working fine for 2 years with an MSD 6a and 8202 MSD coil. I reseated the rotor screws with blue loc-tite. before assembly. The internals look to be identical to the MSD.

I think my app (97ss 383-D1 forced induction) puts alot of load and stress on the opti. Stock opti's do not like high energy load (my experience). Anyway, that's my experience with six (6) of them. B.

 

IMO a LOT of opti failures are the result of incompetence and miss diagnosis. I have owned opti equipped cars for almost 11 years, as many as 3 at a time, daily drove them up till late this fall. I have put something over 250K miles on LT cars all bought used and never have I had an opti failure and neither have any of my friend's cars that I help with and several of them also daily drive modified LT1 cars, one friend's wife even has an AI cam in her daily driver. I have a lot of experience. If the opti was half as bad as it's reputation I would have seen a failure first hand by now.

The Delco unit on my car has seen 7000rpm on occassion, nothing more than loctite on the screws and a new vacuum harness.

The MSD is well documented to be a step backwards, most of the experienced guys who tried it swapped back to stock within 6 months. I have handled one, pretty yes, but it did turn out to be half the problem with the car I was working on, AutoZone opti got the car up and running.