Anyone ever had the OPTI go out?
 

I have gone through six on one car and four on another.

Is this a big problem with thiese cars?


:corn:

Nahhhhh, they are super reliable. All you have to do it:

-Avoid pressure washing engine
-Avoid puddles
-Move away from Flood Zones
-Don't let your EWP go out
-Drive like a granny in the rain
-No automatic Car Washes
-Change cap and rotor regularly
-Keep vent lines unclogged
-Don't over oil your air filter
-Locktite rotor screws
-Don't run a high voltage coil
-Keep timing cover from leaking
-Keep intake manifold from leaking
-Say a prayer before every road trip

See, totally reliable :)

I've never had a single problem with one. Seriously.

Eh, I've known dozens of people with LT1's that haven't ever had an issue. These cars aren't garage queens either, driven hard and often for the most part. People love to blame the optispark for everything immediately it seems. Mine is fine at 100k miles all original.

Most people run into problems when they rev high past stock redline, get it excessively wet, replace it with an inferior aftermarket junk unit, and/or install it incorrectly. But honestly, most of these things are true for many different parts on many different cars.

Bottom line IMO, if you can't afford a couple hundred bucks and don't have a few hours to replace a part on a 15+ year old car, the used performance car scene probably isn't for you.

Same here, still on the original 19 year old piece.

YUP Stock Opti failed... then MSD unit failed. Got a stock replacement, next week my engine is overheating.... pull my water pump to find the splines on the water pump drive gear's shaft stripped right off... Thanks GM. I was seriously ready to move on to another manufacturer of vehicle at that point. :bang:

I had the opti fail right after I bought the car...it was installed wrong. I bought a delphi with an MSD Cap/Rotor Kit, used silicone and loctite and ran that opti HARD for 2 years with ZERO issues driving across country several times...then my crank broke and took the opti with it when the balancer came loos and hit the opti. Replaced that with the exact same setup...no issues yet.

The opti is blamed a lot more than it SHOULD be IMO. I helped a buddy put his shit back together after he took it apart and he SWORE UP AND DOWN that it was a bad opti....got the new one installed, got ready to crank it and nothing........tested the coil and it was a bad coil...what WOULD have been a $35 fix turned into several hundred.

I have never had any issues with the opti on any of the LT1's I've ever dealt with. Hell I've had several 93's with the originals including my current car with over 160k...knock on wood.

Mine died but I know its because the car gets beat on.

I put a new one on, it runs great, not that big of a deal.

It didnt seem that bad when I changed it.

Had one fail at 100k miles. Current unmolested opti running 7000rpm for 8 years now.

I've replaced the opti once on every LT1 I've owned, so 3 replacements on my cars. They were all higher mileage. Replaced them for several people as well. They aren't as bad as they're made out to be.

^This

When I first got my '93 with 89K miles, it had a slight miss to it and being a "noob" at the time, I bought a new Delco Opti and put it on and it didn't fix my problem.....found a cracked plug wire though.:emb:

So it didn't need replaced. Otherwise i've put 20K miles and 4.5 years of abuse on the Delco I bought without a single issue and I've driven in heavy rain and take it to the track and abuse it often. Seems durable enough for me....

My origanal opti failed at 144k, replaced it. Now have 44k on the gm piece. ALWAYS go with the origanal equipment its solid. How does an opti get installed incorectly? Dont think thats possible! OP what opti's are u using? Because i think they are crap! Stop bying them! Do u have some sort of interference problem?(if thats possible. High voltage problem? Have u had someone qualified with electronics check the burnout ones as to why they failed?

My opti went out with a slut water pump once, I ended up with a bunch of little sparks running around loose.


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What kind of optis are you using? Are you installing them yourself? With a failure rate like that, I believe there would have been a massive recall at some point.

Mine broke

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...r/IMG_5364.jpg

And by broke I mean I shot it.

Only "problem" I ever had with an opti in over 12 years and something well over 250K mile I put on cars I bought used is one wagon I bought with 172K miles on it later developed a slight stumble in wet weather. I was actually doing heads/cam on the sedan at the time so I bought a new cap and rotor kit and put it on the sedan and put the USED 60K mile set on the wagon and drove it till 227K when I hammered a deer. I wouldn't consider that an "opti problem" I would call that a high mileage used car needing a tuneup.

I wash the engine, I drive fast in the rain, I do not silicon the cap. Only things I do are dielectric grease on the weatherpak and loctite the rotor screws.

None of my friends have had issues either and one couple in particular both drive cammed, stalled Caprices year round here in WI. Her car goes through a lot of tires and she always seems to break something in the dead of winter but never an opti. And they actually have a fair amount of waterpump trouble which I have not. Some of it goofy stuff like the pressed in pipes seeming to weep. If you listen to folks here that would kill an opti even if it was just a spare in the trunk sealed in a ziploc.

Somebody has serious ANGER ISSUES. :guns:

99.9% of the time its The Installer or Shouldve been replaced at 100k anyways LoL Shit has a service life & doesnt last forever Youve gotta do maint.... on a vehicle Plain & Simple :) Had a buddy that would get pissed at his ole lady & do nuetral drops at Redline LoL I told him that 60E will frag He said I do it all the time Twice after he killed the 60E but not the Opti Took him washin the engine bay for an hour to do that LoL Replaced both The thing ran great when he sold it & that dumbass wrecked it Operator error accounts for most of everything!!! Hell if you use blue loctite on it & dielectric grease half the battle is over Then just line up the dots/marks!!! Hell its really easier than a SBC LOL You just tryin to get the rookies wound up TOFAST4LUV!!! LMFAO Hell the Attention to Detail under the hood of Your Race Car, I think you know what your doin under the hood!!! LMFAO

I think a LOT of optis have been declared "dead" when all they needed was to dry out or just a cap and rotor swap.

Most people who daily drove HEIs would throw a cap and rotor on every year or two, people bitch if an opti cap dies no matter how long it has been on there.

Of all the LT1s I have had pass through my hands and worked on over the years, I only ever saw one bad opti. It was in a 1994 TA that I bought that had been sitting for six years and would not start. Testing showed that the optical sensor was not working.

IMO most opti failures are from unattended weeping water pumps or installer error.

I bought some off the wall brand aftermarket opti off ebay for $75 brand new. Its lasted over a year so far after drivin in pourin rain and through 3 or 4 inch deep puddles and just flat out givin it hell daily. So optis arent really that bad. And its an easy fix anyway


Posted from LS1Tech.com App for Android

I've never had a problem. Mine was used for 157k miles before I replaced it. Still seemed to work fine though. :)

In all seriousness, I've had only one go bad and that one would probably still be working, if the rotor wouldnot have worked loose and took out the guts. My current one has 8000 miles on it with no issues.

Fade, when I say installer error, he installed an MSD Cap/Rotor Kit and put the tiny washers in between the rotor and the opti......when he cranked the motor, it shredded the inside of the cap and the rotor...he blamed it on a bad opti and sold the car.....

LMFAO!! You guys are funny!

For those who do not know me I do this for a living ;) I do not think the Opti is the worst thing ever, Just in a bad spot for servicing.

I ONLY Use GM opti's. My car getts about 12,000 on it before it starts picking up a High RPM Miss. Replacing the Cap and rotor with a MSD set will usually get me and other 12k miles but by then the bearings are usually going out.

I Did testing with MSD on there parts and worked with them to get a quality parts that lives today. We found some of the reasons the screws come loose and addressed them the best we could in the contruction of the rotor.

I went deep into the Nines with my last OPTI. BUT in an effort to make the car more dependable I eliminated it in my current build. I have had the opti start failing durring a race while going into the big money rounds. The new sensor cost me $30 and can be changed in 20 minutes max. I will NOT be stranded, as I have been, or loose money to one again.

BTW This thread was posted as a Joke for all the threads I still see ;)

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphot...67115475_n.jpg

Whats an opti?

My opti had 145k miles on it when i rebuilt the motor. The bearing was bad so i bought a msd opti off here and put my other optical sensor in since i knew it would work. I payed $35 for the msd because a tab was broke off. The original sensor is still in the car and im turning it 6800rpm without a problem.

I personally believe alot of the high rpm miss can be linked to the berring being out of round and walking. I was surely hoping this thread was a joke, with ur experience optis should be real easy to anyone with some mechanical experience.

I think it is good Ellis came back and posted more so the newbs can see just how radical his setup is and they have seen that the overwhelming majority do not have problems.

My opti "deaths" have been caused by a failing water pump and an oil leak.

Had people swear mine was bad turned out to be the cap Ben great other than that

173k on mine :)

and twofast4lv your setup is crazy, I've seen it before in other threads before, makes me :hump: every time.

Thanks Guys. My setup is just your average 1k setup ;)

I am sure parts of my opti Deaths are related to the extreme high energy we are putting to them to fire the power ;) I killed the first one at 32k on the dail ;)

Then again it has been a good 10+ years since I found the PCM shut off RPM to :D

Damn.....thought someone had stolen Ellis' screen name when I read the title/poster. LOL