i sisconed my cap on my new opti. 10,000miles so far

 

siliconed

 

i believe my MSD billet had a bigass Oring on it.. also did the screw mod so it wont back out.. only put 2k on it

 

I always thought that the big reason to go to the front mounted and cam driven distributor was the Corvette engine package. Since the LT1 was built for the 92 Corvette it made for a very compact small block Chevy which fit very well under the Corvette hood. (The LT1 intake manifold is another hood clearance disign consideration).

On a side note:
You can see front mounted distributors on a bunch of Ford Flatheads in the Big Daddy musium outside of Ocala Florida.


Karl

 

One of the weakest points in sealing the stock Opti is the seal in the harness connection tower. I suspect that most of the liquid from the water pump enters there, not through the case gasket.

 

Agreed and a little dielectric grease on the weatherpak seal goes a long ways towards improved sealing.

 

I totally agree with injuneer on this. From what I have seen the big GM O-rings that are captured to one case half are not affected much by age at least from what I have seen. This being said I don't think this is where the moisture gets in. I am not convinced that siliconing the case halves on the GM opti is the magic solution to the problem.

When I ran the piece of $..t Accel opti a while back, after I took it off and apart I noticed that their opti case o-rings had expanded due to the heat in less than a month. There is no way this thing would ever again seal up tight. I truly hope that these are not the same o-rings that come with the MSD cap and rotor. The GM o-rings are far superior maybe because the glue them on.

I think the effort should be made to keep the moisture form entering the opti through the high res. side connector near the top. I always put plug wire grease on this to help to help water proof it. Maybe this connector can be enclosed somehow.