camar0corey

iTrader: (22)

Good post. The warranty doesn't cover the number one reason for failure, awesome.

kinglt-1

iTrader: (26)

I have read quite a few threads about people having issues with the msd opti. I have also read threads about people having good luck with them too. The stock units have the same track record but they are damn near 1/2 the price of the msd!!! Point is nothing has been proven to be more reliable than stock unit as of yet, so why spend almost twice the money on something thats providing a minimal gain at best? Don't get butt hurt, Im not bashin msd at all!

brianswimmer23

im still going to go with GM OEM brand opti! never had an issue and have always enjoyed being able to not have to go back and re-due it cause i have had issues with MSD. only OEM for me!!

z_speedfreak

iTrader: (3)

pretty cheap! but what the hell is this supposed to mean? "Wear and breakage are not covered under this warranty."
that looks pretty damn good, has anyone here used one? also do the MSD one's have a riveted rotor like this one or just the standard screw?

aboatguy

I have yet to have an OPTI failure.

I replaced the one on my corvette when I did my first Head cam package

(opti was still good and I sold it on EBAY) Funny thing was it sold for more than half of what the new one cost..

My 1995 Impala SS has almost 160K on it. I bought the car from the original owner and have every reciept for anything he ever bought for it. Long story short ORIGINAL opti.



I'll stick with OEM until someone shows me a 100K longevity with high rpm shifting..


The current OPTI in my Corvette is a couple of years old and must have thousands of 6800+rpm blasts on it without locktite (I never pulled it apart)


MIke

t/afrom504

its seems like all opti's are just hit and miss

Abdullah

iTrader: (2)

which is better? the GM opti or the MSD opti?

Speedracer2j

iTrader: (8)

Truth be told, I JUST bought one of these opti's last week. I am not home, unfortunately, I am still in Germany, but im going home tomorrow. My buddy, installed the part. He said he pulled them both(oem and new one) apart, and looked over everything, and it seemed to be of similar quality. I couldn't exactly justify the $300 for GM at this point, when truth be told, unless its cap/rotor, they pretty much ALL break the same. My buddy ran the car, said it ran great, just fine. If this one lasts me 6 months or more, and it breaks, well then ill go to something new...dynaspark or LS1 pcm, something. But, if you don't mind the labor, I say hell why not. Its better to break a $140 opti than a $300 opti, if you don't mind the work right Ill give some more info this week once I get home and drive the car, inspect everything. Hope this can provide some insight. Oh, BTW, the seller is from Waterloo Iowa, and i'm from Davenport, so I figured WORST case scenerio, if he sold me some ****, its not so often you get an angry buyer at your door if you know what I mean.

ElkySS

iTrader: (6)

i bought mine from he chevy dealer less than a year ago so who ever said they have been out of stock must be wrong

1998silverbird

iTrader: (29)

Everyone should do a poll on MSD or OEM...

My Firehawk has 69,500 miles on it.. It is the stock opti and I noticed today while cleaning up the engine bay that there is or was a oil leak right on top of the opti. We only have had the car for 2 weeks now. My question is what is the schedule for changing the cap and rotor? Would you even bother with changing the cap and rotor and just change out the unit as a whole? I know on my previous cars that had distibuters I would change the cap and rotor every 50,000 miles.. The car has sum sputtering when it is not warmed up that could be a opti issue but I am leaning towards bad gas at the moment..

halucinator

iTrader: (3)

The main difference between an OEM opti and the cheap optis is the actual sensor. Don't judge an opti by its cap! True GM optis only come with the Mitsubishi sensor! I have cracked open quite a few and the cheap brands leave quite a few questions to be answered. Mainly in quality and buildmanship. The cheap ones had fingerprints all over the shutter wheel and there were no markings on the sensor. Wonder where it was made?

93TAJ.C.

iTrader: (1)

I bought my 1993 trans am with the original non vented opti. The water pump was leaking all over it, oil was freakin evrywhere, the opti just looked like a chunk of grease, and when i got it off and scraped all the goo of it i realized the cap was cracked wide open! And it still ran fine somehow, like the goo was actually sealing it. I pulled the motor and replaced all gaskets, and added all bolt ons except for elec water pump, got a madz28 tune, bigger injectors, and all I did with the trashed opti was buy an msd cap and rotor because it was still working great. I did loctite the rotor screws and used hi temp rtv to seal the little vent holes, and actually went all the way around the opti too, even though it comes with a seal because the seal looked like **** imo. I,v put 8k on my car in the last 4 months driving it like i stole it, and shifting at 6000 all day.

Another thing I think effects the opti is where you live, I live in colorado springs and its really dry here. But my car did live its whole life in ND so that could be bullshit too. MSD optis look really nice and i would buy one, but replacing an opti is so freaking easy I just couldent justify buying one unless the rest of the ignition system was as good as the msd opti. Putting a 500 dollar msd opti on a stock ignition system just doesent seem right to me unless they wer simply indestructable, but it seems to be pretty close between them and an actual oem opti.

93TAJ.C.

iTrader: (1)

Yep thats right. Mitsu came up with the tech long ago, and it works fine for them, GM just put the opti in such a war zone its a battle for the opti to survive. I'm really surprised they do as good as they do to be honest. It's one of those things that make you think engineers are out to get you, like they all gather once a year and have a good laugh at all us poor ******* that deal with theyr practical jokes.

kinglt-1

iTrader: (26)

The vent hole is suppose to hooked up to your cai via a 3/8" hose. Condensation can't escape if the opti is completely sealed, there was a reason opti's switched to a vented design on the 96-97 cars. Everything else you did was correct tho.

6covered

I talked to the guy who designed teh MSD Opti at the MSD Booth last year on Power Tour. He had some terrific logic, at least made very good sence to me.

Short story. New MSD Billet Opti in my Frehawk last summer. Haven't looked back. I think it's a major upgrade over OEM. Found him this year and thanked him on Power Tour even though they had no booth.

Just my $.02

Jon

transamws6_97

iTrader: (5)

heres a good read

http://carprogrammer.com/Z28/How%20t...%20better.html

Ralls

iTrader: (32)

No he's right. Non-vented opti's have three small holes in the case for venting. It's not as good of a vent as the later years though. MSD has you seal them off when you use their cap.

This is a good discussion. I need a new opti for my new motor. I want OEM, but there are so many fakes out there I'm afraid I'll buy junk. And I wouldn't be surprised if vendors selling "OEM," are not really OEM.

kinglt-1

iTrader: (26)

Oops, I was thinking he plugged then vent hole on the cap, my bad.

RallyBoy

iTrader: (1)

I totally agree with this statement. I used an autozone reman opti and a $25 cap and rotor from ebay. I used the reluctor wheel from my old opti and I it has been working excellent. The autozone reman had the mitsubishi optical sensor.

buffman

iTrader: (9)

Thepartsladi doesn't seem to stock OEM Delco's anymore, but the Delphi units are the exact same, save cap color difference, and maybe slightly rougher casting marks on the opti base. They use the same mitsu logo'd optical sensor. They are one of the cheapest places to get Delphi "OEM" opti's, and carry a two year warranty. One on my car I sold was running just fine.