Hello Folks,

HeatMaker here with another tale of how I broke a part on my car. After 2 years of "OK" service my new GM opti has given up. To start I must say that the optical spark setup on the LT1 is the biggest piece of s**t ever to come out of General motors doors. So now that that's out the way onto my story. To skip bordem I'll fast foward to year two of the optispark. I had done some new engine work to the car, and had the car tuned to a 6,300 RPM redline, dropped in an Aluminum Flywheel, Some TR55's and a new set of Moroso's on the car. The car was pretty fun... I hit the 6300 RPM limit all the time on highway blast, but lately the car had a problem. When I hit the local highway to open her up It didn't have the same pull. I also slowly noticed my car starting to over heat past the usual point, since she normally stays at 180degrees even in the summer heat. So I've got the car on full throttle, and when I get to about 5600rpms the car does a violent miss and kicks back. I drop my RPMS and ease off the throttle. In denial I ignored the miss, and figured it to be random. So lately after that day I noticed the car backfiring on cold startups, she shook more than usual at idle. This wasn't the comfortable rumble that I had been accustomed to, but a violent bouncy motion. My hood and dash shook more awful than usual. But as soon as the car heated up it went away. Then I ignored the car, but slowly realized that I was having trouble getting to my upper rpms. As I was on my way to work one day I bumped into a black LS1 transam. I smiled and thought I show him a bit of LT1 power, but as I got on the car, she didn't want to move like she used to. Something was terribly wrong with my baby. I disengaged my target and let him go in peace. THe next day I start the car up to the usually tune of backfiring, but this time when I pull out the car starts missing, and then clears itself up. My fuel consumption went to hell. My 02's needed changing they were burnt, so I ened up swapping them out. To my suprise no noticable change, but a few more mpg. THen the missfires started getting more frequent... untill one day as I was driving the car began to overheat to a higher mark. Why was my engine running so hot? I sat in a 7/11 parkinglot and let the car cool, and then I slowly brought her home, missfiring all the way. By this time the car was stuttering when starting, and I noticed that the missfiring occured when the car was hot, backfires when cold. So the next day I get in the car to drive to work, and on my way there the car kicked off. my face dropped, and I pounded the dash vigourusly like a lke a virgin in the bathroom. I brought the car back to life minutes later, only to find out that she didn't like me to take here over 2Krpms... so I babied her at 1.7K all the way back to the drive, as people on the road honked thier cars throwing thier middle fingers up at me, as the sound of little LT1 backfires drowned out thier profanity. I stuck my hand out the window, and threw my fist up in a fit of rage!!! By the time I made it back to the drive I felt so relieved. finally when I had the time I inspected the system. I pulled the plugs, and found they had blown open, from the .05 gap I gave them to .06 and Cylinder 8 had a cracked porcelin tip. More than enough to stress any opti to the point of death. This paired with an MSD 6AL would guarantee its end. I then sat on my car greasy and exhausted feeling yet defeated once again.

 

Take one of these:
http://www.paceparts.com/index.asp?P...&ProdID=146731

...and one of these:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/IGNIT...spagenameZWD1V

...and call me in the morning.

 

Hmm, that sounds exactly like what my car did when the cat plugged up. How do yo know its the opti?

 

So, you had bad plugs and you blame the opti? I don't get it. The opti always gets blamed for everything. If you had good plugs in there, maybe the opti would still be ok.

 

The high voltage from the MSD 6AL probably helped things along.

 

In those circumstances, maybe so, but I don't subscribe to the "MSD is an opti killer" theory. Too many people (including myself) have run them for years without a hitch.

 

Heat,

Get an MSD opti and forget about it.

 

Not what I was implying. The Optispark wasn't made to withstand an aftermarket ignition setup. Everything that happend was just a chain result of that. A wider gap may be nothing for the msd, but it's hell for the opti. at at a .06 gap I'm sure that was more than enough to knock the wind out of it after 20K miles. My MSD setup has never been a problem, it's usually after the coil that issues occur,the opti's don't last at all. They always get blamed because they are to blame. The optispark systems become quite problematic, once you go beyond what they were ment for.

I order that accel junk to hold over, I tried to get the MSD they were sold out... I need my car running on Thursday. I plan to delteq it as soon as I get her where she needs to be.

 

I went 120k on my stock opti, washing the **** of my engine bay often, and driving through heavy rain and through puddles. It still worked. Im just putting a brand new gm opti on my new engine.

 

How can you be so confident in something that, from what I got in the other thread about this opti, nobody knows much about? How many people even have it now, let alone have been able to give any feedback?

 

Well I hate to be the bearer of bad new...BUT.....

My 4 month old MSD cap and rotor DIED on me this weekend! The opti portion is still working and we have lots of spark just nothing getting out of the cap Does not matter how great the MSD opti is if it is going to burn up a cap and rotor in 1,200 miles!

Deltec on the way and the cap and rotor are going back to MSD. Maybe I can get credit on a DIS-4.....

 

I HAVE ONE and running it.

 

AND it can't be old enough to tell us the whole truth yet

I feel the Opti Section of the MSD will be a great improvement over stock. Although that section of the GM Opti did pretty good to begin with. I am very suprised my MSD Cap and Rotor died so soon. I am running the same system I have on all my optis. MSD 6T and MSD coil. I usually get 12,000 to 16,000 before they go out not 1,200 miles. I should have it apart by the end of the week. I have to get some customer cars done before I can work on mine

Good Luck!

 

It's got to be better than stock!!!!!!
It has a bunch of 7000RPM shifts on it already.
How long it lasts remains to be seen.

 

LOL I hear ya! IF they would have been out I would have bought one I would really be Cussing the dead cap and rotor but It would have looked good with the Billet cover on it to

We will know more tomorrow I hope. I just dread pulling all that stuff back off the engine again. Not to mention my BeCool Radiator is a PITA to get in and out!