Need help with my 97z

[raroZ28]

Car is losing lots of power up top. I'm thinking it's the optispark. I'm about a month away from storing this car and I plan on putting in new plugs, wires, and replacing the optispark.

I don't know where the optispark is, and I can't find anythign about it in my haynes manual. Shoebox.com isn't that helpful with this either. Is there a how to? Where can I get the optispark? How much is it? Any info would be great. Thanks.

[alenstein]

I just did my wires last night. Not an easy task, 3hrs, it helps if you have jack stands, you can only get to your wires from underneath the car same goes for the opti spark, its covered by the water pump, from the top you would have the remove the intake elbowto see it. Make your wire installation more easier remove you battery, air induction tubes, the plastic boot that goes around the steerig joint.
Now I truly know why the optispark is hated so much.

[Injuneer]

The Opti is the distributor. Its mounted on the front of the engine, below the water pump. If you're going to change wires, you'll have an easy time finding it, because thats where the plug and coil wires connect. Shoebox has a large amount of info on his website.... but I guess he assumes you know basically what the OptiSpark is. His website is the best around.... hard to believe you couldn't find the info.



There are several online guides to replacing the Opti. I'm not sure that I'd just jump to the conclusion that you have an Opti problem. Could be plugs, wires, coil, ignition control module, corroded contacts on the plug or coil wires, corroded contacts on the Opti harness connectors, weak fuel pump, dirty fuel filter...... have you ruled all of these out?

[raroZ28]

ok it's the distributor. I see now. That makes more sense. I was under the impression that this car had no distributor. I'm going to tune it up first and see what kind of luck I have with that.

Plugs, wires, cap and rotor.

Also, any idea why a cap and rotor is 140 bucks? I have never paid more than 8 for any other car.

[Injuneer]

If you are replacing the cap and rotor, you are doing all the work to get to the Opti, then only replacing 1/2 of it.... not a good plan.

Experience has shown A) use only a genuine GM Optispark.... do not use aftermarket stuff. You can get a full replacement, genuine GM vented Opti for about $200 from Jason Cromer or Dal Slabaugh (do a search for "links"). B) if you are going to replace the cap and rotor, save yourself some possible grief and replace the entire Opti. You may find that the back 1/2 of the Opti - the optical cam position sensor module - is what is bad. Or you may find that the bearing is going bad. Neither of these parts gets replaced with a "cap and rotor".

The cap for the Opti includes the seals, and has internal (cast inside the phenolic) "wiring" that allows the firing order to be converted to the seperate left and right bank configuration that you see in the drawing above.

Good info on the Opti:

http://www.charm.net/~mchaney/optisprk/optisprk.htm

[1996fbody]

that 140 bucks is for a re-man opti spark and in your 97 like my 96 its just easier to by the re-man then the parts. if you want a dealer part brand new there 450ish. BE VERY CAREFUL! to make sure that you index the opti right.!!!! This is frum experince also you'll need the oem crake puller that any auto parts store sell (15$) it will take you some time alone with the wires to do the opti. also when you taking out the water pump make sure that you pay attention to the secondary air pump bracket on the right as your looking at the car. I broke mine . Good luck. and get the pic of this site to make sure you index the opti right.

[raroZ28]

I'm not too worried about this being a hard job. Nuts and bolts nothing more. Things can only go in one way.

I was going to tune it up to rule out the possibility of it being the plugs, wires, cap and rotor. Then replace the opti, but since I'm in there I might as well since it's going to go bad eventually... Kinda like the window motors. You just wait for it.

Is there anything better than GM parts? Aftermarket wise? Not autozone. The camaro is too hard to work on to be replacing things all the time because of the junk they sell. But is it wise to use GM parts when they're known for only lasting around 80K? And the warranty they offer is junk.

Example: Window motor, 100 bucks, 6 month warranty. Advance auto - 50 with a lifetime.

[Injuneer]

I'll explain it one more time.... GENUINE GM Optispark.... $200 from Cromer or Slabaugh. Yes, if you're stupid enough to go to a "list price" dealer parts operation, it will cost you $450. You decide where you want to shop.

The GM part has proven reliable. The 95-97 "vented" model is nowhere near the problem of the 93/94 non-vented model. In either case, there are LT1's on the road with over 150,000 miles on the original Opti... they don't all fail.

There are alternatives to the Opti:

Dynaspark - A billet case Opti, with upgraded seals and bearing. Stock optical module... don't know what they use for a rotor. Do a search on "Dynaspark". I think they are about $450.

LTCC - A "black box" that allows you to use only the optical sensor signal from the Opti, to drive 8 LS1 style coils in direct fire mode. Removing the high voltage function from the Opti seems to eliminate a lot of the problems. I was one of the first to run the direct fire LS1 coils (although not using the LTCC, which has only been around for a year) and they've been reliably producing 800HP in my engine for about 4 years.

Delteq - Another "black box".... this one allows you to use only the optical signal from the Opti to drive a Northstar V8 4-coil "waste spark" setup. There is a promise of an upgraded Delteq system that totally eliminates the Opti, but its been "coming soon" for at least the last 8 months. This system is designed by the same guy who did the SDI/Opti-Eliminator.

SDI/Opti-Eliminator from Electromotive - I was one of the first to run this setup back in 1999. They only sold about 20 units, then stopped making them. Totally deleted the Opti, driving the stock PCM with a "chip" that synthesized the Opti optical sensor high and low resolution pulse patterns from a crank trigger wheel. It use a 4-coil waste-spark setup, very similar to the parts used in the Buick GNX Turbo 3.8 (but with an extra coil of course). This was a KILLER system for the batch fire 93 LT1's, but had a problem with correctly synching the injector sequential pulses of the 94 and newer LT1's. But it allowed the engine to run without the Opti. I used it for about 2 years, and sold it to a friend.

My advice, based on more than 10 years of LT1 ownership, and having been on the cutting edge of Opti "replacements" for the past 5 years...... 1) Make sure the Opti is the problem. 2) Buy the genuine GM full replacement part.

That's all I'm going to say on the subject