been a while since i posted about the problems with my 383 rebuild,,, 2 yearn now, thought i should up date on the latest excursion into my trouble shooting a bad idle and miss, i will not go into detail other than all the other avenues of ignition problems have been eliminated and everything boiled down to the opti,,,finally got the stubborn dampener off and will be lathering it up with anti seize when reinstalling. i had an oil leak to begin with in front of engine, cannot see any specific leakage from seals or head but the oil is there, not real obvious but will be replacing the water pump seal and the larger one under it as a precaution, once i removed the opti and proceeded to unscrew and take it apart i notice the screws not to be very tight, when i opened it up first thing i noticed was there was quit a bit of oil inside the opti not exactly sure how it gets in there, maybe the seal the goes around the unit itself, suggestions from experts would be appreciated, once i could see the rotor i noticed one screw was missing and the other about to come off, you could see 2 contacts had a heavy build up of arching and the rotor itself when rotating was wobbling and wearing out the plastic where the arching was, so now i have to decide which opti to buy,,, this one was ac delco, so much for quality control. the problem s this was creating was a rough idle,, some time good and other time worse,,,,, surging, and would not go past 46 hundred with out stumbling, looking at petri opti as a replacement,, i do not trust the re manufactured ac s any more..hopes this helps with some of you with similar issues , also forgot to mention that the timing wheel was rubbing against the top of the sensor, so that also was not aligned , the saga continues.....

 

Paging DizWiz and his infinite wisdom and knowledge on location of NOS (Non-Noob) Optisparks.

 

There is an oil seal around the opti driveshaft. That is likely where the oil you found inside the opti came from.