One time I was speaking with a guy at the drag strip abuot washing lt1's under the hood and he said that one time, he got water into the air pump that pushes air into the exhaust manifolds. As you'll notice, thoes are also the same tubes that are used to get exhaust gasses into the egr valve. once the egr opened up, water went into the intake manifold, and the car no longer ran. He ended up taking it to a mechanic thinking it was the opti, but as it turned out, it was water into the intake and cylinders.

maybe that explains the white smoke from your tail pipes once it was running.

my 2 cents.

 

Well, I had the weekend from you know what. Saturday, I got my AC delco in from mid America and bought the gaskets from the water pump, coolant and what not. I spent all morning cleaning the front of the motor. 10 yrs of collecting crud is a lot. Dang!! that was a lot of crud especially on the cross member. Well anyways, that night I finally got the car most of the way together. Opti in, balancer in, water pump in. I just had a few loose ends to tie up. (By the way on the water pump I put the fitting on the bottom so it wouldn’t leak on the opti. Great idea Redeasysport !!! I wasn’t ready to take the drill to a new opti though) I got up early Sun and finished up everything. Connected the battery and cranked the car. Ran great a lot better than before. I had a slight miss at idle and it was gone now. I let it run and filled up the coolant and then killed it. It was a beautiful day so I got the car off of jack sands, rolled it out of the garage and washed it (NOT UNDER THE HOOD). I go crank it up again and it started doing the same thing as before it would want to start but then sputters out. I started to check the spark on each cylinder. I did all the ones on the driver’s side and then tried to start the car again. Started up and ran fine (I thought it was a loose wire). 5min later it dies and started doing the same thing. I went and grabbed a bite to eat came back tired it again…nothing. I let it sit for a few more hrs and push it back into the garage. Late that night I tired again. Started right up and ran fine for about 8-10min then my water pump blew out!!!! Coolant everywhere. I killed the car and that where I am now.

I got a bunch of questions for you all.
1.) How do you prep the gaskets for the water pump??? Do you put back RTV on both sides???
2.) From what I read there was no torque sequence but the torque spec was 30ft/lbs right???
3.) Does this sound like Mid America sent me a defective opti???
4.) I did replace the coil too. Could a defective coil cause that? Is there anyway to check the coil?
Thanks,
Jeff

 

the first thing I would do is check for trouble codes

 

2 more things, fill your gas tank and use this to diagnose a bad ICM: http://shbox.com/1/4th_gen_tech2.html#opti_test

 

It never threw a code...I datalogged it when it was running fine, when it died, and when i tied to started and nothing looked abnormal. Thanks for that link I will check that tomorrow. What do you think about the water pump though. I find it crazy that it blew the gasket out. Do you put RTV on yours???

 

Well the water pump troubles me, I glued my gaskets to the pump then installed the pump. Did the opti come assembled or did you install the cap and rotor?

 

Yeah...I bought the whole unit assembled it was $400. So...I don't know. As far as the water pump that really worries me. I'm not 100% sure that it was one of the gaskets I’m just assuming that. It was getting really late my friend was on his way over to pick me up to bring me back to school. So I really didn't get a good look at it. I'll do that test for the ignition module tomorrow evening and this weekend I’ll start tearing it down again.

I put black RTV on the water pump housing and on the engine block and then put the gasket on and torqued it down to 30 ft/lbs. Does that sound right???

 

I would use GM gaskets and no RTV. The mating surfaces have to be CLEAN. I am not sure what the torque spec is but I will try to find it.

 

30 ft/lbs is correct

 

Well I fixed the coolant problem...now on to the bigger stuff.
...
I read that thing about testing the opti many times and have some questions. (My dad is helping me out so he is doing this over the phone with me since I’m up at school this week).

What’s the purpose of using a high impedance meter (I have a theory but not sure if it is right)? If my meter doesn't say would that be all right to use? I don't want to have computer problems.

I did the first test since it wasn't directly to the pcm. I did not get any voltage at the pins they asked me to measure...however, the car started up and ran...if there was something wrong with the ICM would it run? I was a little worried about the second test so I didn't do it.

I shut the car off after a couple of minuets so I don't know if it would have run for an extended period of time. Anyways this weekend I’m going back I’m going to check all of my connections again. Try to run the car and if it runs fine for 20-30min I’ll take it out for a drive. Hopefully it was just a loose connection.

For the mean time...any ideas or tests I could do??? What about a test to the coil?? And where is our ignition fuse (like I said I’m working over the phone so I can't see what’s going on. My dad said he did not see any IGN or such fuses)?
Thanks again,
Jeff