944V8inMD

hey all! great to be over here, heard a lot of F body guys talk about these forums...

so check this out:

I've read that you can drill the back of an LT1 intake to accept an old school HEI distributor. That's good. What i have also read is that the engine computer requires a signal from the opti to deliver fuel. Is this correct? If so, could i go ahead and set up an HEI system, but leave the opti in place with the plug still plugged in to read off the optical trigger and deliver fuel to the injectors?

I'm really looking hard at doing this HEI conversion, so for now don't try to convince me out of it. i've had horrible experience with opti's and it's not particularly easy to change them out with my swap, but i have very good access to the back of the engine, so an HEI would be easy to install and change out in the future if the need arose.

thanks guys!
Ethan

p.s. here's a quick video i shot of the car right after i built a true dual 3 inch system for her...there was a bit of a miss in the engine, which if you listen closely you will probably be able to catch. I have since installed a corvette fuel rail to clean up the engine bay a bit more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oamLBaXyiCI

RamAir95TA

iTrader: (2)

As long as the optical signals are still sent to the PCM and back to the ICM to fire the coil, you shouldn't have any problem running a conventional distributor with the optispark still in place. I personally have never done this before, but I don't see it being too much of a problem.

shbox

Since you still need to keep the opti for fuel delivery, how is that going to help you? Go carbed and you can get rid of it. Plus you'll be able to buy a factory made carb intake capable of using a rear mount distributor, instead of needing to have an FI manifold modified.

944V8inMD

if i keep the fuel injection manifold i don't have to modify the hood to fit the engine in the bay...total sleeper look.

I've read (and i don't know if it's entirely true...grain of salt right?) that the optical disk is actually not the big problem with the opti most of the time...it's the high voltage that can jump all over the place as contacts wear. I haven't heard of any major problems with the other vehicles (mitsu's etc) that use the same type of optical trigger system, and i think this is why:

"To add insult to injury, the Opti-Spark distributor uses a "Correct-a-Cap" design that places the spark plug wire terminals on the proper side of the engine for easy spark plug wire routing. To do this, the terminal traces molded into the distributor cap must come extremely close to one another, which leads to premature arc-over in high-load applications and applications using constant high-voltage (Capacitive Discharge) ignitions. Not good.

But not all is defective on the Opti-Spark distributor. Inherently, the optical sensors are fairly robust. For most applications, the sensors are not the cause of most problems. To prove this fact, Mitsubishi manufactures the Opti-Spark sensors, and variations on these same sensors can be found on most late model Mitsubishi and Nissan applications. Reliability problems with the optical sensors on the Nissan and Mitsubishi vehicles are simply not present in anywhere near the same quantity as the LT1 and L99 engines"
taken from delteq's website

if this is in fact true, the problem isn't in the optical disk, but in the leakyness of the stuff around the opti, and the high voltage all around the opti. If i can fix the leakyness (i know for a fact my intake leaks oil at the front) and i remove the high voltage from the system, i have eliminated the two major problems with the optispark setup (in theory) right?

thanks
Ethan

944V8inMD

i'm thinking i'll look around for a used known to work gm unit, because it might buy me enough time to let me save up and do an ltcc coil setup or something like that...i just can't justify spending 500 bucks on an opti that i can't guarantee will last me longer than 6 months, because the last two i had didn't...

old93camaro

iTrader: (8)

well if you look in the for sale section its like two LTCC for sale at or about 425....might want to check them out

944V8inMD

thanks for the heads up...you wouldn't happen to have any links would you? i'm having a bit of trouble finding the stuff you're talking about...maybe i'm just tired

thanks!
Ethan

SoxXpupPeT

iTrader: (34)

Awesome build!

z_speedfreak

iTrader: (3)

500! yikes! check out chandler motorsports optis, they have an opti for under $100 w/ a year warranty and another for a little more that comes w/ a lifetime warranty and I have yet to see anything bad posted about them yet. heres some reading> https://ls1tech.com/forums/lt1-lt4-m...torsports.html

ChandlerMotorsports

iTrader: (3)

Thanks for the recommendation.

944V8inMD

Mr. Chandler, does your warranty include product's installed on swapped vehicles? i've heard of many companies having 1 year warranties, but only if the part is installed at a shop in the car that the engine came in originally or something silly like that.

ChandlerMotorsports

iTrader: (3)

No on the shop install, because we know there are as many hack shop owners as there are people who do bad installs themselves, and as many great home installs as shop installs. So we don't need a receipt or anything like that.

We do however only warranty items that are installed on the original engine. We've monitored return rates on cars that have early to late and late to early lt1 swaps and what not and have seen much higher return rates.

I would say at least a third of our warranties have VIN numbers for a non-vented car when we sold a vented unit or the other way around. Compare that to the number of vehicles out there actually swapped and you can see why. If 5-10% of cars have swapped engines, and they make up 30% of our warranty returns on the item you can see the issue. Its not a case of whether or not its the "original engine." It just needs to be the right engine for your year. If you have a 93 with a 97 engine, we won't warranty the 97 optispark purchased. We have it in the optispark thread, on the paperwork we send and have mentioned it in the forum before.

We're also upfront about it, so we don't pull any trickery. We're also upfront about the no jerks policy too. Hell everything is up front

That's why a lot of other companies are so difficult to deal with warranty wise. Because they use those things as "loopholes" to back out of warranties. We're up front about our two concerns. Don't install the part in non factory conditions, and do be a jerk to any of the employees here.

If you have any questions feel free to email the customerservice email below.

944V8inMD

emailed customer service...

seems a bit silly to me though that i can take a 97 engine and put it in a completely different car (not even a gm car) and that would void the warranty on the opti, even though the opti is installed on a 97 engine and that's what i would have bought.

I wouldn't be on this forum if i hadn't chosen this engine...because the car is a friggin porsche...what if i had taken a 1994 Porsche 968 and put a 1994 LT1 motor in it? would the warranty cover that?

Just doesn't seem right to me that a warranty is dependent upon the car, when it's a motor part...you can run a motor without a car!

944V8inMD

looks like i might still be looking at doing a small cap distributor swap...so let's talk this out guys!

What kind of computer will i have to run, will i be able to run the stock PCM and use a vacuum advance distributor to keep up with the fuel timing?

what's the best small cap dizzy to use? cheapest? any with computer control that i might be able to program into the pcm to use?

ChandlerMotorsports

iTrader: (3)

Hi, I'm sure I just got off the phone with you. The reason is that there are additional precautions that need to be taken that we can't verify on a case to case basis.

Cooling is usually the first of those precautions. I believe you said you had a 944 or something similar, regardless, running a 4 cylinder or 6 cylinder car. Has the fan been upgraded? Bigger radiator? How about the wiring? Is there OEM care in the wiring?

The list goes on. We go by our return rates, and we stand by it. From what it sounds like you got stiffed by another seller, and we aren't going to stiff you. We are up front. You also mentioned burning out a GM unit in short order. Whether you got bad luck or it was an install\swap issue is to be seen. But the point being is we can't eliminate install\swap. And that's just another reason to add to the optisparks already long list failure points.

For motor swaps (this does not include replacing your engine with the same engine) we only warranty the item 60 days (you must call for an exception so we send the correct sheet). Swapping 93 style motors into 97 and 97 to 93 etc is the same.

And like I said, there is no way I can remember case by case items a year from now. We would verify application, it would be a non-stock application and we would deny your claim. Then we would be the bad guys. I think we're pretty fair. We do have limits. You mentioned another seller "dissapearing" on you. That's exactly what happens when you have unrealistic warranty policies, super low prices and sell out of your basement. Its exactly why we raised the price on our units. Next year we'll probably raise them again a good amount so that other sellers can sell the units as well.

As I said to you though, we don't care about the cap and rotor kits. Because honestly we've never had one come back on warranty. So if you buy a junk yard unit, feel free to refresh it with our cap and rotor. If you decide you want to go with our unit, give us a call so we can process your order correctly.

Otherwise good luck on your quest to eliminate the optispark! Word is that its a good long term investment!

944V8inMD

thanks for talking it over with me Nick, i appreciate it.

I'm looking into a coil pack conversion right now...so if anyone has any tips or links, shoot them to me! I'm open to suggestions, other than buying a new opti!

944V8inMD

i went ahead and bought a known to be good used gm unit that i will be refreshing with a new cap and rotor (possibly from chandler motorsports). I'm going to go ahead and reseal the engine while i'm in doing the opti, and i'm going to give the opti a very good cleaning with isopropyl alcohol and seal it up with rtv. My plan is to keep looking around at the ltcc setup and eventually go up to one of those setups, but i will need a good working opti first, so i might as well go ahead and get one in the car (maybe this way i'll be able to get the car back on the road soon too)

i'm still interested in any info people have on the LTCC setup, the small cap distributor swap, and the 24x EFI connections setup (although this will probably not end up on my engine).

I've read a bunch about all of these setups, but any personal experience and links that helped you decide which to do etc. would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks guys!
Ethan