Opti number 5 in 3 months
02-16-2012, 08:44 PM
#21
Yea timing cover would have to come off. You risk alot doing that, oil pan gasket could tear if your too mean! and you give yourself more work, need to loosen the oil pan too.
But if it isnt a vac hose issue and it goes out again, your kind of crazy to replace it without digging deeper.
But if it isnt a vac hose issue and it goes out again, your kind of crazy to replace it without digging deeper.
02-16-2012, 09:26 PM
#22
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Ok well if the cap is being sucked in on itself then would this do the same for the optical sensor and destroy it?
Shoebox one more question could a bad tach cause a electrical problem to the opti..I'm stepping back and trying to analyze every angle..I know that when I hooked up my tach I had a constant 12 volts to the tach sending wire and when car was running it would pulse also..usually a sending wire does not recieved a constant 12v and I noticed since I installed this autometer tach that I would see the needle jump out of no where even when opti is new..when I had previous tach I never had this problem..first opti spun a rotor which is common the. I put new tach in and one month later bad opti and it had continued breaking could this tach be my problem??
Shoebox one more question could a bad tach cause a electrical problem to the opti..I'm stepping back and trying to analyze every angle..I know that when I hooked up my tach I had a constant 12 volts to the tach sending wire and when car was running it would pulse also..usually a sending wire does not recieved a constant 12v and I noticed since I installed this autometer tach that I would see the needle jump out of no where even when opti is new..when I had previous tach I never had this problem..first opti spun a rotor which is common the. I put new tach in and one month later bad opti and it had continued breaking could this tach be my problem??
Unless you hooked something up directly to the harness going between the opti and the computer, I don't see this being the issue.
02-17-2012, 07:40 AM
#24
I would think if thoz sob's forgot the cam retainer that could definitely cause cam walk. possibly even with the distributer fakeout gear in the back.
Does anyone know what voltage should be coming out of the tach sending signal? he's got 12volts there....seems he has already supplied an additional 12v constant to the aftermarket Tach. Its possible the aftermarket was not counting on the signal wire giving 12 volts....so in total this tach has 24v going to it. Maybe it''s feedbacking some of that to the pcm and the pcm is frying the Opti thru the hi low signal wire cluster.?? The tach output is on the same circuit as the ignition on the pcm.
Does anyone know what voltage should be coming out of the tach sending signal? he's got 12volts there....seems he has already supplied an additional 12v constant to the aftermarket Tach. Its possible the aftermarket was not counting on the signal wire giving 12 volts....so in total this tach has 24v going to it. Maybe it''s feedbacking some of that to the pcm and the pcm is frying the Opti thru the hi low signal wire cluster.?? The tach output is on the same circuit as the ignition on the pcm.
02-17-2012, 10:46 AM
#25
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I am now convinced that it has to be cam walk there can be no other option I mean the chances that the vacuum lines are sucking so much to destroy the opti in less than 5 days just doesn't make sense!!
02-17-2012, 12:33 PM
#27
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well the only way to find out would be to take it apart and see how much play is in the cam, just so I can be 100% positive thats not the problem. then work my way from there, I dont want to risk another opti without checking that, thank God I have warrenties on these optis
02-17-2012, 01:47 PM
#28
It's dowel...Well if the machine shop didn't put that in then there idiots..do I have to take the timing cover off to check if that's there..this brings me to think that it has to be electrical that dowel pin I fixed and measured to proper size...the only thing in thinking is an electrical problem
Secondly, when you say you checked the dowel pin "for size", can we interpret that to mean you checked how far it protrudes from the face of the cam, and not the pin's overall diameter? If you're unsure of how this should look, the installation instructions for a Dynaspark distributor, which can be found at the Dynaspark website, have a good tutorial on this.
02-17-2012, 02:19 PM
#29
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No i checked how far it protrudes from the front of the cam and it was too long so instead of putting a new one in I cut it with a dremel and put it to the correct size according to shoebox...so I thought hey I solved the problem then 5 days into the new opti it took a crap. I will be checking for play in the cam once i get it off and post updates this weekend
02-17-2012, 02:59 PM
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02-17-2012, 09:18 PM
#32
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I do not believe it's possiable to see the cam retainer plate with out pulling the timing cover. With the timing cover off you might be able to look in behind the cam timing gear and see if you can see the retainer in behind it, but with the cover off, you are right there, anyway to pull the gear.
02-19-2012, 12:56 PM
#33
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Subscribing to see what the outcome is. I sold a friend of mine a stock 110k mile LT1 from a wrecked 95 TA M6. He installed it into a 95 Z28 M6. Nothing was tampered with or freshened...just pulled and installed...even the wiring harness was left attached to the motor and he had pulled his harness out. The damage to the TA the engine came from was minimal and it hadn't been hit hard from the front or rear. (My aunt had actually hydroplaned and rolled onto it's roof and slid...somehow not impacting either end of the car.) After getting his z28 running, he started having opti trouble like this. It would run fine for a few days then the rotor would contact the cap and it would be toast. We checked for cam walk, made sure the retainer was good, measured dowel length, tried GM optis, Accel optis, and rebuilt Cardone optis. He finally gave up and bought a delteq conversion (my recommendation....feel bad about that since the company is closed now) and it has been fine. We never figured out what was happening. We also never considered the cap being sucked in onto the rotor.
I'm betting that this is what it is somehow. You mentioned less vac with a larger cam, and this is true at idle, but once you are running at more rpm your engine is going to pull a good bit still.
I'm betting that this is what it is somehow. You mentioned less vac with a larger cam, and this is true at idle, but once you are running at more rpm your engine is going to pull a good bit still.
02-19-2012, 01:34 PM
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It would be dificult to see the cam retainer plate with the opti off and the cover still on, but you may be able to get somethig in there to pry and see how much forwards and backwards play you have.
02-19-2012, 04:26 PM
#35
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Mine just ate 3 on my trans am. Thats when i got a little ticked and picked up the phone and gave EFI connections a call. Its got me wondering if the hole in the cam wasnt drilled exactly centered and is beating the opti to death from the runout. Never had any issues with the stock cam.
02-19-2012, 04:47 PM
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If your removing the timing cover to check if the retainer plate is installed or not, make sure you remove the retainer plate and make sure it's not worn on the inside (camshaft side). Had one towed into my shop, same symptoms, removed retainer and it was worn in (cam was fine). Replaced retainer and opti, and all was good.
Don't know how the retainer got worn down but was definitely the problem (allowing the cam to push on opti). Good luck.
Don't know how the retainer got worn down but was definitely the problem (allowing the cam to push on opti). Good luck.
02-19-2012, 05:15 PM
#37
If your removing the timing cover to check if the retainer plate is installed or not, make sure you remove the retainer plate and make sure it's not worn on the inside (camshaft side). Had one towed into my shop, same symptoms, removed retainer and it was worn in (cam was fine). Replaced retainer and opti, and all was good.
Don't know how the retainer got worn down but was definitely the problem (allowing the cam to push on opti). Good luck.
Don't know how the retainer got worn down but was definitely the problem (allowing the cam to push on opti). Good luck.
02-20-2012, 08:45 AM
#38
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subscribing to see what the outcome is. I sold a friend of mine a stock 110k mile lt1 from a wrecked 95 ta m6. He installed it into a 95 z28 m6. Nothing was tampered with or freshened...just pulled and installed...even the wiring harness was left attached to the motor and he had pulled his harness out. The damage to the ta the engine came from was minimal and it hadn't been hit hard from the front or rear. (my aunt had actually hydroplaned and rolled onto it's roof and slid...somehow not impacting either end of the car.) after getting his z28 running, he started having opti trouble like this. It would run fine for a few days then the rotor would contact the cap and it would be toast. We checked for cam walk, made sure the retainer was good, measured dowel length, tried gm optis, accel optis, and rebuilt cardone optis. He finally gave up and bought a delteq conversion (my recommendation....feel bad about that since the company is closed now) and it has been fine. We never figured out what was happening. We also never considered the cap being sucked in onto the rotor.
I'm betting that this is what it is somehow. You mentioned less vac with a larger cam, and this is true at idle, but once you are running at more rpm your engine is going to pull a good bit still.
I'm betting that this is what it is somehow. You mentioned less vac with a larger cam, and this is true at idle, but once you are running at more rpm your engine is going to pull a good bit still.
02-20-2012, 08:48 AM
#39
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If your removing the timing cover to check if the retainer plate is installed or not, make sure you remove the retainer plate and make sure it's not worn on the inside (camshaft side). Had one towed into my shop, same symptoms, removed retainer and it was worn in (cam was fine). Replaced retainer and opti, and all was good.
Don't know how the retainer got worn down but was definitely the problem (allowing the cam to push on opti). Good luck.
Don't know how the retainer got worn down but was definitely the problem (allowing the cam to push on opti). Good luck.
02-20-2012, 08:51 AM
#40
If your removing the timing cover to check if the retainer plate is installed or not, make sure you remove the retainer plate and make sure it's not worn on the inside (camshaft side). Had one towed into my shop, same symptoms, removed retainer and it was worn in (cam was fine). Replaced retainer and opti, and all was good.
Don't know how the retainer got worn down but was definitely the problem (allowing the cam to push on opti). Good luck.
Don't know how the retainer got worn down but was definitely the problem (allowing the cam to push on opti). Good luck.