i've been told there are differences the way they work. How are they different? I mean, how do they work different.(Not; normaly distributors are on top of the engine and the opti is on the front)

A link to a webpage would be great.

 

The optispark is the distributor. It is just mounted and driven from the front of the cam, instead of the conventional location of the SBC.

 

ummm.... forgive me if I go TOO basic. but here goes.

The Opti-spark works very different, but it's the same concept. A distributer iin an sbc is splined to the cam. As the cam rotates The rotor, inside the distributer. the rotor makes contact with the eight points, causing it to fire.

Opti's are also splined to the cam, only directly in front of it.
Go here for some good pictures.
http://www.charm.net/~mchaney/optisprk/optisprk.htm

Inside there is a slotted disk with 360 holes on the outer ring providing up to 720 degrees of resolution. compared to the standard distributer's 8, thats pretty good. This is read by a photo emmiter/reciever. Information is then sent to the pcm about the cam position. via the opti harness. The rotor works about the same. except that it refrences the pcm first, so it can be advanced, or retarded as needed. Unlike the distributer, the computer controls the advancement of the ignition timing on the opti.

Yeah I know I dumbed it down a lot.
Oh well.