wilsonbh

My MSD Optispark has arrived. I'm about to being vehicle surgery. I've seen somewhere, a pretty good article on "how to" but can't remember where I saw it. I'd like to review as much as I can before I begin. I plan to replace my waterpump with an Electric mod. I have a pretty good article on that it it looks pretty easy. But the Opti looks difficult, a true cussing job.

Anyone have a link they can share or a datasheet on changing out the Opti for my 1994 Corvette?

STL94LT1

Once the water pump is off. Remove the balncer/dampner , and the opti will be right there.

vette92_1

Here is one, but I don't know how accurate it is, I have not read through it for one, and two I have not changed one out yet. However I am in the same boat you are, i have a new MSD unit setting in my garage just waiting on me to get off my _ _ _!

Click Here

96_vette

Well. Yesterday was a rough day. My Opticrap went south completely on my 95 T/A, so I went to the dealer and bought one ($343). I did take the old one apart (I'll have pics later) but decided that with as much stuff as I had to take off that engine, I wasn't going to take the chance that I might have to do it all twice. Actually, for what had to be done, it didn't take all that long. Here's the scoop. Before starting, remove the negative terminal on the battery. First, you need to raise the car to get underneath. You'll notice that the harmonic balancer/pulley is the first thing that is in the way. You'll have to swing the tensioner out of the way from underneath and remove the belt. Remove the three bolts on the harmonic balancer pulley and pull the pulley (I used a puller). Next, remove all plug wires and the two vent hoses (if equipped - 95+). Next, remove the intake tubing from the throttle body to the air cleaner. I just unscrewed the one big hose clamp at the throttle body, disconnected the MAF electrical connector and air pump hose, and pulled the whole thing as one unit. Next, drain the radiator and remove all hoses from the water pump. A few connectors also have to get disconnected during this procedure, like the coolant temp sensor, IAT, Optispark, etc. Next, remove the water pump, because that's also in the way. There are six bolts holding the water pump (14mm). When you go to remove the middle bolt on the driver's side, you'll notice that to remove this bolt, you have to remove the electric air pump. There are two large bolts (14mm) and three small ones (10mm). Let the air pump hang. Remove the air pump bracket, held in place by the two 14mm bolts. Use a 14mm deep socket to remove the last water pump bolt. Remove water pump. Spend about an hour trying to get the old gasket material off the pump and block. You'll need new gaskets for installation. Next remove the coil wire and set aside (you may have done this earlier, as it makes removal of the air pump bracket easier). Now, looking down at the Optispark, you'll notice that below the Optispark are the three "prongs" that hold the harmonic balancer pulley. You'll also notice that the Optispark will only slide off if two prongs are pointing up, and one pointing down. You may have to get under the car and use that 14mm socket and a breaker bar to turn the engine over a little until you get it lined up. Now, remove the three (I think 10mm) bolts that hold on the Optispark. Pull it straight out toward the front of the car. You may have to tilt the top out a little more since it will still hit the main shaft at the bottom. Don't worry about lining it up; it is indexed so it will only go on one way.

You can take it apart and clean it, or but a new one. Up to you. It really isn't complicated at all inside there, so if you have the time, I'd try cleaning it first expecially if it looks dirty. I removed a torx screw from an old carburetor to remove the Optispark inverse-torx bolts. I held the screw with vice grips and they unscrewed no problem. Once the screws are out, and you remove the (really small) torx bolts holding the rotor on, the back just pops off. Inside (under the rotor) are two really thin metal discs. The bigger one has 360 slots and easily pops off for cleaning (be careful not to bend though). The 4 wire connector is actually the optical pickup. The outer edge of the slotted disc passes through a slot in the optical pickup, which reads the slots. Basically, just clean everything and sand off the rotor and contacts just enough to get the gunk off. Things were pretty rusted in mine, so you could get the rust off too. Probably wouldn't hurt to spray everything with Ether (starting fluid) to get the moisture out. As for cleaning the optical sensor, probably a little piece of sterile gauze dipped in alcohols would do. Just slip the gauze through the slot where the disc turns and slide it back and forth. Make sure no pieces of gauze remain in there though. As I said, I didn't bother doing this, because I wanted to guarantee I only had to do this once... and... I think I ruined mine anyway with another untoward procedure... which... um... I won't go into here.

A method of cleaning loose particles from the Optispark without removing it is possible on 95+ cars. If you are going to have to remove/clean it anyway, you could try blowing some pressurized air through the vent hose(s). To do this, remove _both_ vent hoses. One slips into your intake with a blue elbow. The other is on the drivers side edge of the intake. It has two one way vacuum valves in it. Disconnect this one in front of the blue (bigger) valve, so that you have two hoses running to/from the Optispark with no valves connected. Blow air into the one you disconnected from the intake (blue elbow). The air will come out the other hose. It is important that you blow into the hose with the blue elbow because of the way the Optispark is designed. Blowing into this hose will cause turbulence inside the Optispark that will cause any particles dislodged to collect at the other hose, and be blown out. Now, I tried this and it seemed to help a little, but I didn't have a compressor. All I could use was a vacuum cleaner set to blow out. Needless to say, it was _lame_. I think the compressor would do a better job, and I don't think there's anything you could break by doing this. Just make sure that you didn't blow off the hose (look underneath) when you are done. And just a little hint... don't ever, by _any_ means, feed any type of liquid in there in hopes of remotely cleaning it. No matter how evaporative the liquid is, you'll never get it all out!

The installation is basically the reverse of removal. The whole thing took me about 6 hours. Have fun guys, and don't let it discourage you. It's really not that bad. Just a bunch 'o bolts.

neat

I did an MSD opti install on a 1994 Firebird a few days ago at work. The car had a Meziere electric waterpump that had an interference issue with the MSD opti. Basically, the opti is a little more robust and it hit the Meziere pump and wouldn't allow the pump to go back on all the way. It took me about 20 minutes with a high speed grinder and a sanding drum to properly clearance the water pump.

It might not be an issue on all cars, and you might not encounter it, but I thought I would bring it up.

Other than that, the job is pretty straight forward. The hub and balancer is the worst part by far. Good luck!

wilsonbh

Thanks for the info....I'll study it at length and read the Helm's manual before I begin. It does look straightforward, but difficult. There is a brace in the way, right in front of the balancer hub that cuts out a lot of the available room to work. Will be hard getting in there with the tools needed to remove the 3 bolts on the hub. I'm hoping that when I remove the waterpump, it will look easier to get at the hub and then the Opti itself.

What a stupid design!!!!! Making something that is destined for maintenance, yet so GD difficult to get to. Just plain stupid engineering in my view.

Billy

Bill Hetzel

A couple of tidbits:
IF you don't have the Torx socket to remove the GM cap, one comes with the MSD.
Neat's right about the waterpump fit. Ths MSD housing is a little larger. I had to file the MSD on the left side where it hit the waterpump. But I only took off about .030. Also,the hex bolts that MSD uses will a little side to side movement. Dry fit your pump first.
Before you install the Opti, attach the lower vent line to the bottom. It's really a pain to get a pair of pliers past the crankshaft flange to attach the vent line spring clip.
Try fitting the oring that goes between the cap and Opti on the bench before you install the unit. MSD says to streach the oring out and it will stay in place, it dosen't. It keeps poping back up onto the black plastic .This leaves an 1/8 inch gap between ths cap and housing. I don't like to force things so i used a little masking tape to hold the oring in place and pulled it out before the cap was tigntened the whole way down.

For you 92 guys, the connector won't fit a 92. It has to be hardwired.
MSD doesn't state this in the instructions or on the website. I have the diagram.

SJW

Here's a set of tech tips I wrote up a few years ago and have posted here from time to time:


Get a Factory Service Manual, and follow the procedure it lays out.

A few tips (I'm going from memory here, so I'll probably forget a few things):

Drain the cooling system.

Disconnect the MAF sensor and IAT sensor and remove the air intake duct with the MAF and IAT as an assembly.

Disconnect the ECT sensor and remove it from the water pump.

Remove the serpentine belt and tensioner.

You may find that you’ll need to unbolt the coil/ICM bracket from the front of the right cylinder head. I can’t recall for sure whether or not I did.

Unbolt (but don't remove) the power steering pump. This will help you to sneak the new plug wires in/out behind the pump, but may also be somewhat helpful when working on the water pump/Opti.

If you want more room to work, you can remove the radiator, but it isn't strictly necessary, and it involves considerably more work to remove it (I left mine in place).

The FSM will tell you that you need a special Kent-Moore puller to remove the crank pulley/damper. You don't. Here's how to get it off:

1. Raise the front of the vehicle enough that you can get under the car (it's also helpful to have it at a more comfortable height while you're working from above).

2. Remove the three bolts that secure the pulley/damper to the hub.

3. Mark the damper and hub so that you can easily see how to realign them to each other later.

4. Slide under the car with a long pry bar or hardwood dowel (I use a jumbo Snap-On screwdriver that's around two feet long) and a mallet.

5. Place the tip of the pry bar against the rear face of the damper, as close to the hub as possible (Ideally rest the tip alongside of the hub).

6 Give the pry bar a few whacks with the mallet, and with any luck the damper will pop off without too much of a fight.

You may find it helpful to apply a few whacks, then rotate the crankshaft in 120* increments, whacking it a few times at each interval (I haven't needed to do this).

It's also helpful to, if possible, shoot a bit of penetrating oil where the damper meets the hub, a day or more in advance of doing the job.

After you get the damper off, clean the damper/hub mating surfaces to remove all corrosion, etc, and apply a very thin coating of anti-sieze compound to these surfaces before you reassmble the damper to the hub. This should make it a lot easier to get the damper off next time.

Once the damper is removed, rotate the crankshaft so that one wing of the damper hub is at the six-o'clock position. This will position the other two wings at around the ten- and two-o'clock positions. In this orientation, the Opti will clear the hub as it is being removed/installed.

The Opti basically unbolts and pulls off as you'd expect, once you have the water pump and damper out of the way.

Once the Opti is out of the way, inspect the shaft seals for the Opti, water pump, and crankshaft. If they show any signs of leakage, replace them now.

When you install the new Opti, be sure to align it correctly with the cam gear, and don't force it into place against the timing cover (do NOT use the bolts to draw it into place). At most, give it a gentle bump with the heel of your hand to encourage it to pop into place.

Reassemble everything else.

Follow the cooling system refill procedure in the FSM carefully, and you'll have no problems with this. In particular, be sure to bleed the air out of the system as it's being refilled.

Hope this helps.

Be well,

SJW

imputor

I'm just finishing this job up today, things I learned:

Taking the water pump off is pretty easy, keep a good hold on the bolts though.

Taking the damper off can be a pain, I used a puller with some flattened bolts that i slid through the slots on the damper.

http://www.projecttransam.com/projects9.asp is a good walk through of the water pump disassembly and reassembly. I really had to pound on the shaft. Take the coolant temp sensor out, I broke mine while pounding.

Take the cap off of the opti for install so you can make sure it's lined up correctly.

imputor

Don't forget a relay for the water pump.

Torched96LT1

I have done three of these so far. One more simple step that could help out alot that does not seem to be addressed is taking off the Trottle Body. It gives you more clearance and allows the water pump to slide straight up. It does make it easier.

wilsonbh

Did you have any clearance issues with your EWP install? I have a 1994 and was told that it's tight, but no problem. I sure hope this is the case....

rickneworleansla

Read these.

http://web.camaross.com/forums/showt...light=msd+opti

http://web.camaross.com/forums/searc...archid=1745256


http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show....php?t=1768641

STL94LT1

I'm running the Meziere HD electric water pump on my car, it's longer than the standard version. It was easier for me to install the water pump housing to the engine first, then install the Meziere.

wilsonbh

Yes, I have the HD version too. I have to modify my waterpump to accept the electric pump so I must remove it from the engine. Have to anyway as I have to replace the Optispark. Plan to attack this problem this coming weekend. Been too long now with no Vette to drive. Starting to feel the withdrawl symptoms.

Billy

pcolt94

The most difficult thing might be getting the balancer off.
If it is anything like mine, it took me hours to get off due to the rust. Sand the hole a little and lube before you reinstall. Always hit balancer from inside circle, never on outer balancer ring.

The most critical item is to get proper shaft or notch alignment with the opti and cam. Misalignment of one tooth will cause a no start condition. Opti should just almost fall on, the bolts should not bring it to the engine, but only hold it in position. Start engine before installation of water pump.