ok fellas i need your expert advise before i throw money away. 96 formula a4 cc306 1.6 rr madz tune..... it pulls like a mother until 45 to 5 k then studders as if its bouncing of the rev limiter...to my knowledge it has original opti with 137 k . it didnt do this before the build so im trying to figure out if its the opti failing or if im loosing fuel pressure....i wanna think if it were fuel pressure it wouldnt be so specific to that rpm range but all the time...also in my tune i had him adjust for a 150 shot that im putting in next month. i found one place with an opti in stock but wanted to see your guys thoughts first.. so frustrated, in the middle of walking a 99 bolt on ws6 then spit and sputter and watch it leave me!

 

Sounds like an opti to me honestly, don't buy a whole new one just rebuild it with new rotor and cap. Mine never misfired or anything like that when mine went, but it would just up and shut off while driving and not start. At the very end before I rebuilt the opti it started to break up, literally as we took it to our shop to fix it.

 

that's what i was leaning towards too but isnt it the optical portion of it that usually goes bad?

 

I bet its the coil but I'd start with basics. Everyone is so quick to blame the opti..... just my 2cents.

 

I only started with opti because of it being stock with higher miles. It has the cap and rotor inside of it that wears out over time. But agreed check the coil out too. I replaced coil first, fixed my problem short term and then the opti.

 

I had this issue with my car... it would revvv fine and then all of a sudden it started not revving high like it should ... I was getting valve float cause my springs were shot.

Does the car rev fine out of gear? mine would rev just fine unless it was in gear.

just food for thought, that cc306 can eat a valve spring haha

 

holy **** an ls1 guy not bashing the opti.... i thought i would never see it

 

I had the same issue! I had a bad MSD Ignition box. It would seem like it was rev limiting at between 5k and 5.5k but the limiter was set for 6.5k. Replaced with a new one and problem fixed. If you have an ignition box check it out. I have a new coil and distributor though so as stated above, you might have a bad distributor.

 

This^. I've had two friends with the exact same problem. One had a stock coil and the other had an MSD. After some checking someone said the ACCEL coil is better, why I don't remember or even know if its true but we put an ACCEL on it pulls up top now.

 

well i changed out the opti and presto! no more studder! Did 2 wot pulls and it screamed for more lol.....on the bad note, the following day I was just making a trip to the gas station and as i got home and parked I heard the F'ing tick tick tick, actually it was more like a knock/tick knock/tick, I have over 1300 miles on the rebuild, and I have always broken in my motors the way their gonna be driven, so mostly babied with an occasional hammer (not wot) I drove the car over 300 miles now and it hasn't gotten any louder or worse and hasn't lost any oil pressure or power?? It seems too deep of a sound to be a lifter but yet not quite so clanky loud as a rod,,,,,,I'm not looking forward to pulling this thing out again to put in new rods and pistons but something tells me i'm gonna have too, Any ideas? At first i thought it was from running too low of octane, so I put in some 92 and some booster to not change a bit. If i have to pull this thing i'm gonna do a 6.0 swap since I already have an ls kmember sitting around. But it almost sounds like it's coming from behind the timing cover as I can hear it most when i put my ear to the center of the motor while not as much when going side to side. It doesn't get any louder when driving but then again my exhaust is obnoxious and can't hear anything over it anyway. What could be making that noise???? rod, wrist pin, piston slap????