If you had to purchase an optispark today for your 96 LT4, who would you go to?

 

MSD

I might also consider a coil pack conversion and get rid of the opti alltogether.

 

Dynaspark $45 rebuilds for life, try that with a MSD.
We have already been down this road.

 

I would stick with the OEM replacement.

 

I have a MSD on my 96. I hear that you have to replace them every 60,000 to 70,000 miles.

Remember to mark your balancer before you take it off..!!!!!!
If you don't...you'll F#$% up your engine seals.

 

No need to mark the balancer, it only goes back on one way.

 

Dynaspark does not get rid of the opti, it still uses the optical part.

I got mine from THEPARTSLADI on ebay, oem and cheapest around.

If you attach a drain hose to the waterpump weep hole, you will not loose your opti to a WP failure.

My original lasted till 132k miles and my last 45k (but I dropped the waterpump on it ), opti's do last if you do preventive maintenance.

 

On a 95-96, I would most likely go OEM. If i had an earlier opti, I would be leaning towards MSD or Dynaspark to make it vented. I would be happy to pay the extra money for an MSD or Dynaspark if I was convinced that they were the end all solution, but from what I have read, the jury is still out on it. Someone did a poll a while back and the MSD units still had some issues.

 

I bought the Dynaspark but have not put it on as the one that came with the car had only 4000 miles on the one that had been replaced. The car came with the Delteq system and I chnaged it back to original coil and it works fine, so now I have the dynaspark as an extra. There was problems with the Delteq which I think was either in the Optibox or the coil module. The coil module and coils would have been easy to replace as they are early Northstar parts used on Caddy and Olds Aurora. The company is no longer in business and did not want to spend the money to go in that direction. The Dynaspark is a much heavier duty construction than even the newer GM opti's. Mine is for my "ruby" '93 and has the early style. To use the newer style opti on the older LT1, you must change a lot of stuff as the shafts are completely different. Not worth it. On a 94b and newer you could go with original, but I would recomment the Dynaspark with better components. Check out there web site. I talked with them (They are a machine shop) and paid $595 including shipping. They have several models they are making. By the looks of it you could take a high pressure washer and wash the engine and I don't think it would phaze it any. I don't think you would want to do that with a GM one or remanufactured one. Be careful buying one off ebay as I had heard that some are the early early models that GM replaced under warranty. I also learned my lesson on this car by putting on a cheap coil and the coil ignition module. I just replaced them with Echlin parts from NAPA. I'll keep the new ones from Autozone which they replaced under warranty for emergency spares.

Hope this gives you some better insight.

Scott Hansen
Charlotte, MI

 

I installed an OEM from thepartsladi a couple of months ago. My stock opti that I removed with a 113,000 miles still looked real good inside.

 

a gm unit from tpiparts.net

 

Msd

 

 

Msd baby!!!!!

 

 

OEM from PARTSLADI has survived many 6800+ shifts on my little 355

 

Thats what I'm talk'n about...reliability...

 

I bought an MSD for my new engine

 

Agreed. Been really happy with Dynaspark, have put 2 on with great luck.

Lots of reports on here of MSD's being bad right out of the box, including one I had where the bearing was completely shot after 500 miles.

 

Delteq