This past Friday, I took a vacation day and headed down to Summit Point Raceway in WV to attend their high-speed driving school. I've been in about 8 Autocrosses this past year (new Vette Owner) and wanted to learn to drive my car "right". Well, I make it around about 1.5 times before the car just up and died on me while taking a corner about 70mph. The car never make it past 110mph. After that - it refused to start. It sounded like it was just about ready to kick over but it would not fire. After being towed back to the Pits - a few fellow Corvette and Camero owners came over to my aid. We tired all sort of things - but what seemed to be the problem was the OptiSpark (spelling???) since the plugs would not pulse while disconnected and when we tried to plug in a spark plug - no spark. I ended up having the car towned back to Harrisburg, PA (thank God for AAA Plus) from WV and parked the car outside of my local Chevy dealer (they have a great Corvette mechanic there). Well, long story short - its a $1400.00 repair broken down by the following: Water Pump @ $248.00, Distriubtor @ $627.27, 2 gallons Antifreeze and 6 hours of labor. My question is this, should I go refurb for the Distriubtor, could he be missing something? Should I have something else "upgraded" while he is working on the car?

BTW - my car is an 1992 LT1 w/125k on the clock (4th owner). Before this - she drove like a dream!!

Many Thanks!!

 

Ouch! Can you turn wrenches? A new distributor from the Last Detail is $350.00. I would think that a waterpump would be about 50% less than dealer retail also. Some dealers do discount parts 10 to 15% for Corvette Owners (at least in San Diego they do). You might want to check around, though as long as you at a Dealer, you're probably going to pay a premium.

 

It looks like the only problem would be the balancer. It looks hard to take off but everything else is basic hand tools. There is a forum member here that can get you great deals on parts, his name is Jeff. Someone will chime in and give you his email address soon.

 

Thanks for the suggestions however I'm more of a Computer geek so getting under the hook of a car is something that I'm a little apprehensive about doing. I don't even change my own oil (no jokes please - ). I just found a local show that has all the computer equipment and are just starting out working on doing high performance upgrades on Vettes and other sport cars. They are a tad cheaper and suggested that I look into rebuilt distributor at a 50% savings - for now - I’m gonna stick with new. I'm already committed to my local Chevy dealer at this point in time. This sucks!!