eBay opti's
 

So my car doesn't want to start. I'm getting fuel and spark but the spark is orange and weak looking.. Right before it quit running it had a stumble while in park if I press the gas pedal and stumbling while taking off from a stop sign.. The tach was also a little bouncy.. I'm thinking of getting a opti off eBay. Anyone know of any good eBay brands? I see a lot of the random eBay optis sold so someone must be having good luck with them..

Before replacing the opti, have you looked at the coil or ignition control module? The opti doesn't make the spark, only tells it where to go.

As far as good brands off ebay, they are probably all the same offshore parts just with different labels.

Not likely your problem. More likely the coil or coil wire. Used to keep coil wires in stock at the shop. Look for corrosion at both ends of the coil wire. If corroded, ohm it. Probably will find it off the scale if corroded. Cured a lot of drivability problems with coil wires. Much cheaper than an Opti. Very unlikely that would be your problem.

Cheapo optis are a crap shoot.

I beleive chandler motorsports was one of the ebay vendors selling optisparks. People have had good and bad luck with them. Luckily I never experienced any opti problems but I know its not a job I would want to do twice in 1 year, if not twice in 5 years. I would either find a used OEM unit in good condition or a brand new NOS part.

I had a chandler opti and it was jubk, put a opti from o riellys on it worked for a short while then died. Put a gm unit on last spring and had no issues.

I have said gm opti for sale with a newer harness. I totalled my car and have no need for it, pm if interested probably only 1000 miles on it at most

Thanks for the replies guys.. I'll keep you guys posted going to change the coil first and see. And 96z28_lt1 if I need that opti I'll pm you..

Hope this makes it easier to understand:
The Opti tells the coil WHEN to spark, NOT how "hot".

I had a coil go bad on my truck once, had weak yellowish looking spark, put a timing light on #1 cyl plug wire and there was no spark. The coil was too weak to fire the plug under cylinder pressure.

I have nothing but good things to say about chandler optis. I have their lifetime warranty opti and when mine went bad due to an oil leak caused by a bad water pump drive seal they replaced it fast and free. Great customer service as well so they get my vote!

I ran an ebay opti on the car in sig, only problem I had with it is that I broke the back when I tried to install it wrong. Hell the silverado in sig had a chandler distributor in it too, no problems there either.

Oh ok so I installed my old worn out coil pack and the car started. I'll be ordering another MSD 8226 ASAP. Thank God it wasn't the opti.

Glad to hear it wasnt the opti! My experience with chandler was way different the customer service was fine but the actual optical sensor was not. I got one start out of it and that was it, the opti bearing somehow spun itself out of time. They were more than willing to refund me on the opti though so customer service was superb.

Those symptoms won't be the Opti.