Ok i know this is a stupid question i have gotten confused on exactly what it is. i have been reading past posts about it. and i am just getting more confused. i thought it was something then i read something else and now im just not sure. thanks a lot for your help.

 

It's the distributor.

 

It's an optical distributor.

 

Can you give us more info than that? I know the opti is a distributor but I don’t know what makes it better than a conventional distributor.

 

It is mounted on the front cover of the engine(timing chain cover) under the water pump. It is driven off of the camgear or the front of the cam. The low hood line does not allow a conventional dist. there is just not room. I t houses a engine position sensor of sorts so the computer can control timing, there is a small wheel with 360 holes and a sensor that sees the holes in relation to engine position. and then distrudutes the spark( that comes from the coil) to the corrosponding cyl via the "cap and rotor"

Hope that helps, if you still do not understand do a serch on optispark and you will find a butt load of stuff, try the same on google there is a good site where a guy has tore one apart.

 

I believe the sensor is on the crank (crank position sensor)

 

Crank position is also determined by the opti on the pre-96 cars, since pre-96 cars have no crank position sensor.

 

how hard is opti to replace. does anyone know where i could get a diagram of it. how long does it take to do. what else needs to be done when you change it. i have done some stuff but am not sure if i would be able to change it myself.

 

This site will give you some idea.

 

can driving around with a bad opti cause further damage to my car?

 

Yes its possible, you can get detonation, etc. etc. which takes a heavy toll on the pistons.