Here is my opti replacement, and the company who I got it thru. I am posting this because of several reasons. First I believe there is a just as good as Delphi opti out there, and secondly I believe In giving someone a second chance. So don’t shoot the messenger. About 3 years ago I bought an opti off ebay from AIP electronics. Got it in and found out two things. First I just needed a cap and rotor, and secondly then found out that people were having problems with some of their AIP opti’s. So I put it on the shelf, and life went on. About 4 months ago I contacted Kevin at AIP as I saw they had out a newer style opti. I told Kevin my situation and Kevin suggested that if I would be willing, he would ship me a new style opti, I could try it out, and he would exchange the new opti for the old one. I felt that Kevin was confident I would appreciate the new style opti, and I felt he was sincere about getting the information out and letting LT1 owners know that they had a quality solution out there. I sent him the old one, but then had surgery and took till about 3 weeks ago to recover. I originally was going to swap out my opti and drop the pan, put new timing gear in, new seals and other parts for the new opti install. Due to not having a lift to do that, I did the opti replacement only in my driveway. I will say I am impressed by the quality of the unit. The base if machined well and solid, the cap appears to be a msd cap with vent and rotor, the unit comes with a opti harness, and this harness is heavy duty unit, a better piece than the factory one in my opinion. There was little endplay from the drive gear, and overall construction as you can see from the pics is great. So I installed the opti, and after chasing a few wiring gremlins down. Here are my findings. Before my car was taking lounger to crank, no fires up within 2 seconds now. Idle was erratic before going from 800 to 850 constantly, now is steady at 800 to 810 or so. I had a top end miss before that would appear anywhere over 5k rpm’s. now I can spin it to my new revline of 6200 rpm’s reliably and without that annoying high rpm miss. I don’t do this a lot, but anyone who has had a high rpm miss, I feel your pain. I have had this new unit on for 3 weeks now, too short a time to tell about longevity, but I feel this is a quality unit, and I feel that I should get as many miles/ years out of this as a Delphi unit. I wanted to tell you all about this, as Delphi’s are high dollar, and can have problems as you all have read. Other people recently have said they have a good unit, but their tech support has been lacking. I have worked with Kevin, and he has been responsive to my requests, and any input I have given him about this unit. The unit comes well shipped, with a 800 number for support, and other information. If something changes I will let you know about my new opti, but just want to give others the information, so they can make up their own minds. PM me if you ever want any further information, I will always be glad to assist. So call Kevin and see if you are not as impressed as I am.

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hth

Andy schuck

 

You're at the easy part of the game. 99% of all optispark brands, be it Allignition, MSD, etc., start and run just fine. It's the longevity that's the issue mopre often than not, and the cheap ones usually just don't last.

Hopefully you'll have some decent luck.

 

AIP ripped off hundreds of LT1 people in the early years with their crap optis. They won't get a dime of any of my money. I don't care what they sell now.

Oh and next time, try to use some paragraphs, LOL.

 

I can just see in the 3rd pic that the body of the dist uses the 3 traditional weep holes. The vacuum fitting on the cap will be pulling air into those 3 from the bottom of the housing if you've run a vacuum line to the intake. This will be a bad one to drive in the rain, due to its natural tendency to aspirate air from directly below the distributor if you did put a line on it.

I didn't see a barb on the isolator (middle plastic part of the sandwich) or on the housing anywhere. You could easily fix that with a simple, cheap mod (plug the weep holes with RTV and stick a vacuum fitting in the isolator). Or widen one of the weep holes, plugging the other 2 and add the 2nd fitting there for the intake elbow end. Is the vent hole on the cap just open? If it is, you'll want to cap that so you're at least no worse off than using a standard non-vented design.

Not criticizing, just observing. Also, the MSD rotors are beefier and are riveted. What you have is a red cap with the same black gel coat that everybody is using in the aftermarket these days. Looks ok, like RamAir said, but the test will be how long it lasts. Not a bad looking unit, it might be ok. But I'd be most worried about how it's (not) cross vented. I think you're headed for premature corrosion there near the beach.

 

I knew going into this that there would be those that would be negative to this post. I am only doing this to give information. I will be following up from time to time, and if there is a problem, I will post it here. If it is not for you, then fine. But maybe someone will gain from my experience.


tia

andy schuck

 

.....*searches for negativity*.......?

 

...maybe my paragraph comment...

 

That wasn't negativity. You were giving him a tip on how to type so people take him more seriously - even if it is the internet. Trying to read all of that jumbled together was painful.

 

opti ****... i just nutted i think

 

Same opti as Top Street Performance is selling, but with a red cap.

http://www.topstreetperformance.com/...optispark.html


I'm running one. It works well and has about 1000 miles so far. My car is a 93 with the spline drive. The last stock opti lasted 90,000 miles. My MSD lasted 2000. I'm still waiting to see if this opti lasts.

 

I can't see those pics from work. Our web security software is blocking them because they fall into the category of Lingerie and Swimsuit. I can't wait to get home and see what this company has to offer. I might be interested in a crotchless opti.

 

BAHAHAHAHAHAHA^^^^

 

To search their old name its "all ignition." Back in the day they were claiming units made in an AC Delco factory.