I bought a new delphi opti off of thepartsladi on ebay last fall. I installed it into the car immedeately and got it back on the road. It only lasted till a few months ago.... Less than a year. When I removed this opti I could feel something rattling around inside it. As I disected the opti I noticed a lot of corrosion in the main wiring harness plug, and inside the cap once it was removed. Once I removed the rotor, and tore the opti down the rest of the ray, I notice the head of a torks bolt snapped off.


What can I do to make this next opti last longer?

 

Buy a Chandler Motorsports opti

 

they are the exact same piece.....

 

How do you dissect an opti? I got mine off but....are those tiny bolt heads in the top of it? are they .5mm? hex or torx?

 

torx socket size e4 to remove the cap, the bolts retaining the rotor are torx size t8. Once those are removed, the rest of the opti comes apart easily

 

Seriously? Are they AC Delco/Delphi optisparks? If not, I wouldn't recommend them.

 

Mine lasted a whole 2 months... Getting an ac delco unit this time.

 

Ha, thats funny bc they have a year warranty. You are at least guaranteed a working opti for 12 months. Chandler also offers one for about $125 less then a Delphi that has a lifetime warranty. So you'd never have to buy an opti again theoretically. Guess you wanna put that down too.

 

Pull the timing cover off and replace the seals for the waterpump drive shaft, opti drive and crank hub.

Also, some RTV around the casing of the opti especially at where the electrical connector for the harness goes. Seal the **** nicely!

 

I'm not putting anything down. I'm just echoing the prevailing sentiment towards non-oem opti's. Maybe their optispark is great. On the other hand, maybe there is a reason they're so cheap.

 

I dissected both units and there's not much to support the argument that the Delphi unit is better. Every Delphi I have taken apart was rusted inside. The one that lasted 80,000 miles especially. The MSD I had was a disaster, probably because it was an early production unit, but I won't buy again. I bought the eBay opti with the black cover:

http://cgi.ebay.ca/Chevy-GM-LT1-Opti...item483ad72a5d

I ran it for awhile (it worked really well) then took it off for an engine teardown. While I was doing it I took it apart and compared it to my two Delphis. Only difference is the Mitsubishi optical unit versus the Chinese one, and I can't see why one would go sooner than the other. The Chinese one had a rotor bearing that was quite stiff, which made me think there was a seized bearing, but I as wrong. After further inspection the looseness of the Delphi unit would have almost certainly led to misfires.

I think some less expensive eBay optis get an undeserved bad rap. I have seen some people complain about ones dying after a couple of months, but I have seen some say they have 40,000 miles with no problems. I think a lot of the problems have to do with the installers and not the optispark.

 

which torx bolt snapped off? it may have just been in their bouncing around giving you code 16 and 36. Is the reluctor wheel damaged? the Delphi opti may not be bad just had a loose bolt flying around in their. I think you should try this before you buy another one. Give it a try I've got many many many old cheap opti parts laying around. what was it doing that made you think it was bad?