Herb

Which brand Opti have members had the best luck with
When replacing the Opti?

John A. Marker

Your profile shows a MSD. How long has that lasted? We just put in a PETRIS Opti in my friends 94. There were two reasons, it is vented whereas all other Optis for 94 and older are not. And they offered a 5 year warranty. We replaced it trying to trouble shoot a ongoing stalling issue. Here is the background on that...

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...o-problem.html

Her AC Delco which has only been in the car abut 15 months apparently was still good. If your interested in that unit...we can give you a very god deal.

THE 383 admiral

The Best option is Silicone the Caps -plug wire terminals. Remove the Rotor & Coil. Then upgrade to the LTCC ls coil conversion. This will take the stress off of the Opti bearing. NO high voltage & only needs the opti wheel.

dizwiz24

The optical sensor is the most tempermental part of the whole setup. This is the part that separates the good vs bad opti

All that work and it still uses the opti spark?

Herb

My 93 will quit at an idol and start right up quit when you're driving down the road and immediately start back up pretty much like you were saying.
I brought it into a dealer that specializes in Corvettes regardless of year and was told the problem is my water pump is leaking bad and Lincoln on the OPTi I do get an engine check light but it hasn't gotten worse it just does the same thing it quits and comes right back down but when they told me the price I about fell over so I called MSD to see how much they would charge to rebuild it they said 150.
The dealer wanted over 3000!!!

dizwiz24

The worst part about this is that the dealer is buying a cheap acdelco remanufactured unit and charging you $2500 in labor

John A. Marker

You want to change out your water pump when you do the Opti. I added a brass nipple in the weep hole of the new water pump. Pressed it in and also epoxy. Then added a 2 foot section of tubing. If your pump goes south again, the coolant will flow out the tube and drain past the Opti.

dizwiz24

Yes nod

Do this

rsc337

Thanks John for your Water pump drain idea. I did this to mine also and I hope it works as planned.

THE 383 admiral

If you are replacing the WP. I would recommend. Threading the Weep Hole.
then install a nipple with a Hose extension. Very good PM mod.

TorchTarga94

Petris Opti for anything pre-1995.

THE 383 admiral

Well. Luckily for me the LTCC kit was already installed. I perfected the install. Removed the rotor. & coil. Corrected the hack wire crimps. There is a significant Spark improvement. The Opti has been known to drop off the table 6,000+ RPM's.. LTCC can handle 8,000+ RPM's I can guarantee. No single Coil System Can compete with Individual Coils. It has been Notated. Gaining HP with the LTCC kit. It is said the problem with the Opti Is the Rotor & high voltage that can wreck havoc on the Optical pick-up. After experiencing the LTCC kit. I would install this kit Many times over.
I do have a HSR intake on my 383. I also have a traditional Dist with a opti pick-up Installed inside. In the event. I get tired of the OE Opti Dist.

dizwiz24

No im with you. Its an improvement.

You have eliminated the high voltage component which generates nasty ozone and carbon near the optical components.

A vent, like on the later units, sucks that crap out too.

I did see some article stating a hp increase with coil packs vs an Optispark. Im not sure i believe its claims. It was saying 30 hp increase at 5000 rpm or something like that. It just seemed too far fetched. For example, i have no idea what kind of optispark they were using for baseline. Are they using a junk chinese optispark or a 'broken' non vented OEM unit that has failed due to carbon tracking or moisture damage?

Were they comparing the first dyno pull (which can be a couple hp down as the motor blows out carbon) to a later dyno pull in different ambient temp conditions?

I will agree that its nice you have eliminated the high voltage side, but if someone still has a garbage chinese optispark with a garbage optical pickup, it *might* not make the system any more reliable.

Herb

I wanted to make sure it was an MSD before I replied.
A shop installed it.
I couldn't even tell what color it was because of the oil and grime as thick as frosting.
After cleaning it up I could see the MSD letters.
There was so much grime on the water pump I couldn't tell if it was leaking by looking at the weep hole.
I was pleasantly surprised to see the MSD was vented and very well made.
After speaking with MSD I'm sending it off to be rebuilt ($150.00)

Lloyd Smale

if its covered with that much grime you probably have another problem Either one of the 3 front seals are leaking. that was probably what caused the problem with your opti. My guess is the rebuild msd is going to do for a 150 bucks is a cap and rotor and a good cleaning

dizwiz24

amen to this.

cap/rotors are wear items and do need replaced eventually but
the optical sensor is the most important critical and failure prone part of the optispark.

unless it has the mitsubishi optical sensor it is not as good as the oem part (and i concede even some of the mitsubishi optical sensors will fail under heat, contamination, moisture, etc - which is why they added a vent in later models).