1996 camaro ss, lt1, 6 speed, 77,000 miles, flowmaster exhaust, hooker headers, k&n air intake, car was tuned local performance shop,373 gears

I seem to be having issues with my powersteering, sometimes when i first start the car, its hard to turn my steering wheel, but once i rev it up a little, the powersteering slowly comes back, however while driving the power steering seems to cut in and out. Under the hood, where the powersteering fluid goes(by the battery, black box with cap) the box has a broken bolt and is just sitting there, i know it cant go far connected to the lines, but im wondering if it moves, it could be messing my steering up, if not, other possibilies.

2nd. Ever since i had the car Ive seemed to have problems with my plug wire on the passanger side burning up. I believe it is the shortie hooker headers i put on. The wire is too close to the header and heating up and burning through, i went through 4 wires on one cylinder, the only thing that throws me off, i purchased wire covers from ebay that take the heat, i put 2 covers on that wire inpaticular, and also tied the wire back as far from the header as i could, and it has burned again. Just incase Im wrong about the header theory and go through all the work of putting stock manifolds on. Is there any other possibilites?

3rd. I am very dissapointed in my cars performance. (im learning as i go, i am not very good with cars please be patient with me) I was having problems where my car just died while driving down the road, after suggestions and researching symptoms, i decided it was the cap and rotor, which i replaced, since that time, i have not yet broken down. A thing that really caught my eye was a lag in the upper rpms. my car seems to want to shift at 4 grand, feel like if i took it to 5200rpm id scatter my engine. So the cap & rotor may have been some of my problem, but it has not fixed my upper rpms. Open to possibilites for this as well

I apolgize for making this so long, Im in need of suggestions to start somewhere. Thank you

 

Fix the bolt problem in the power steering pump.
Get Accel shorty header plugs to gain more clearance from the header to the plug.
Put a small amount of header wrap around the header near the plugs that keep burning wires.
Replace all the wires while your changing plugs.

 

What part of the wire is burning through? is it the boot or is it further down the wire?

And be more specific as to why you would "scatter your engine" if you took it past 4000 rpm, is it shuttering or stumbling like from a missfire?

Are you loosing power steering fluid any where through the system?

 

I had a problem with my car a while back,breaking up in the higher rpm's,turned out to be a fracture in the wire which runs from the opti-spark to the coil.Fitted a new coil wire and the car was transformed .

 

I am going to purchase the header wrap tomarrow, hoping that it helps, and replace the wire that burned up. The wire was burnt more towards the bottom of the boot, I havent seem the current wire burnt but can hear it and feel the miss. When I am at 4000rpms it just seems to not want to go anymore, if i were to go past, i would feel like i was testing the engines limits. The wire from the optispark to the coil sounds like a possibility, where could i get that wire at?

 

The coil wire came with my set of plug wires,but you could probably by one seperately.My car wouldn't even rev past 4000 rpm,it was like the rev limiter was kicking in.When I went to remove the old plug wire it broke in two.
The coil terminal is nearly always corroded when you remove the wire,give that a clean up with sand paper and then grease it with some battery terminal grease.

 

i forgot this too but if it isnt the wire thats messed up and the cap and rotor is new is there something with the cap or optispark that can be giving me the miss? and is there an oil seal in front of the motor behind the harmonic balancer that oil can come out of? it leaks a little but im not sure exactly where its leaking. any suggestions? thanks

 

As for the coil wire, i have an msd coil wire, wasnt sure that was the wire you were talking about, mine is only a month old so unfortunitely it couldnt be that wire. I am attacking my header leak tomarrow that has been there since i put the headers on, a bolt snapped off inside, it isnt a very big leak, but im hoping for any improvements. I am running out of options with my rpm issue. (My buddy posted the thread about the cap & rotor having a miss issue, the miss issue was occuring before the cap and rotor problem. Because of my shortie headers, i have burnt the #7 spark plug wire up 4 times, checking it today it was not burnt, so im back to scratch with the miss, i have covers from summit over the wires for heat and also put the header wrap on today.

 

Dont buy cheap stock wires with Headers, and do all the above, I had a MSD 8 mm wire touching a header for an hour on longtubes and it didnt burn through.