Make sure the dowel pin on the end of the cam is in the right hole on the distributor driveshaft. I know there are two square holes and one round hole for the peg, but i found on my '95 that the pin will fall into the voids between the holes. I had a no-start condition with this configuration and i was boggled until i yanked it apart... again. it will act as if out of time. I even had a backfire that destroyed my muffler.

Check this by pulling your distributor cap and turning over the engine manually. see if there is a lag between the rotor moving and the crank turning. Turn it both ways to make sure youre in the right spot.

Just a suggestion, i had similar conditions as you described. No start and the occasional chug. Optispark is a pain in the ***. But we love these cars for some reason, probably cause they arent Fords!

 

Well we pulled the opti and sure enough the pin was in one of the cut outs for the bolt heads on the end of the cam. Reinstalled, no more back fire. At this point the car has had the opti replaced, (warranty) coil and ICM replaced, coil wire replaced, (MSD sent out one no charge,-Thank you very much to MSD). Car does run now. Still had an intermittant no spark. With the car running I moved the coil wire around to see if I could make a difference but could not. Then I went to the plug at the coil. Low and behold if I move the wires at the coil plug the car dies. Tried this a few times and got the same result. Cut the wires back an inch or so and replaced the ends. All is well. All the testing we were doing and could not get a pulsing ground. This all pointed at the opti. My question is, and I am posting this in hopes that it may help someone else that may have this problem some day, would the bad wire ends at the coil plug cause the not getting a pulsing ground at the injectors? Really don't see how it could, but I don't know it all. I would like to thank everyone who has tried to help my son with this problem. That's what makes forums like this so great.

 

I think I have this exact issue. Looks like all the pins are pushed wide open in the connector. Everything else tests out.

 

Thumbs down
Check the coil-to-opti plug wire. bad spot for ignition components in these cars being in the front and all..always getting wet and corroding then before u know it it snaps inside the insulation right out of the boot off the coil pack. Worked for me. I was having a crank/no start problem every time it rained or was humid. And the engine refused to spin past 4200 or so rpm at WOT in every gear.. It just missed backfired and fell on its face. everyone said opti this..icm that coil pack this. Nope. So just check simple **** first. I noticed when i first started diagnosing this problem i stuck my head as close to the opti and coil pack as possible with it running and heard a very faint and inconsistant "snapping and clicking".. dead giveaway. Pulled the plug off the coil pack and the pos fell apart in my hand it was so brittle. had a crack in it hence the misplaced arcs and moitsure problems. Mind you it had a tune up just 4 years ago, only has 60k original miles as of last week and is well maintained. Happens to the best of us

 

Ya'll probably aren't gonna believe this. I swear this stuff only happens to me...

I own a '95 Firebird V8 5.7. This is definitely not the engine my mom taught me to work on, I learned a ton on this project. I recently did an engine swap that took waaay to long to complete. Everything swapped great (new engine came out of a '95 Caprice, happy with the steel heads).... Until it was time to turn the key. All I got was a solid crank and no start. After months of following all the diagnostics in the forums and on shbox.com, and having every guy I know scratch his head, I finally pulled the brand new opti off.
Only to discover that the guide pin fits very nicely inside the clover cut out on the opti.... Even lets you put the whole thing back together nice and smooth. The whole while the evil little part is just laughing away. Once I assured the pin went into the proper spot, and put it all back together.... again, it fired right up.
So... Yes the opti can be installed wrong. Don't buy parts until you have truly taken the time to diagnose everything. Spark, fuel and crank... If you have them and it won't start, it wouldn't hurt to confirm the opti installation is correct. Wish I had found something about this weeks ago.
Good luck all!
Lydia

 

Hey I have the same problem my car cranks starts once or twice and dies right after I can smell gas coming from the exhaust. It happened one day I came back from church and I started my car the next day and it shuts off after a while. The intake isn't installed and I don't know if the engine has air or the fuel lines are clogged need help with my 97 SS camaro just swapped the coil wire and it started but it still dies after I let off the gas, thanks!