I took the car out for a little drive yesterday and I noticed a pop or two from the exhaust. It was like a little back fire. It even did it while at idle 2-3 times. Then I noticed when I was in a higher gear at low rpms the car was missing. I car has been sitting out in the heavy rain for the last 3-4 days. I'm hoping its just a damp ignition and will go away when it dries up. I'm a little worried because I only have about 1000 miles on the new engine. The last time a drove it I took a friend out and gave it a real hard run. I did not notice anything strange at the time. Hopefully I did not hurt anything. Is my Opti on its way out or will wires cause a back fire like that. Or does it even have anything to do with the ignition ?

 

It's either the OPTI or the plug wires. My wife's old Formula did that same thing after a heavy rain. I isolated the problem to the wires by spraying them heavily with WD-40 after a heavy rain and the problem evaporated with the water. A new set of wires later and all was fine. If this doesn't help then the culprit is the opti...you can use the same technique on that as well...soak the hades out of the opti cap with WD-40, wait a little while and go for a drive.

 

Are you sure its ok to spray the opti with wd40. I'm really glad to hear that someone else thinks its the ignition.

 

Absolutely certain. This method also works on old style distributors....

 

Worn or damaged plug wires. Seen it countless times.
Get some MSD super conductors.

 

Or some Magnecor's....

 

Great wires, but very pricey.

 

Welcome to the world of a wet opti! I had this same problem due to a venting problem on my opti. Sprayed the hell out of the cap inside and ran better. Fixed the vent vacume problem and its better. But mine used to do that. Slight pops while idiling and it was moisture building up in the opti.

 

Well the popping went away but the missfire at low rpm is still there. I'm going to check all the wires for burns from the headers. Is it ok to drive it like this.

 

I found sparks on both sides of the engine. So it looks like I'm putting wires on tomorrow. How long does it take to change the wires ? I'm going to make sleeves with header wrap for every wire.

 

I've seen it on both wet opti's and old coil wires on damp days.

 

Problem fixed. A new set of wires wrapped with header wrap so it does not happen again.

thanx