I will check my fuel pressure personally to make sure he was right.

I got lucky and one of the local shopzs had a few parts for my car they got from a buyout, I was able to pickup the coil, icm, and opti reduild kit for $75.

The mecahanic installed the icm and coil for free since they were easy to get too, but said he would have to charge to rebuild and install the opti do I told him to hold off till we can track down the problem for sure.

I have a neighbor that can help with fuel pressure tests and checking the opti.

Thanks again.

 

you might get lucky and the cap and rotor will do it. thats what a rebuild kit is. alot of the times its the optical reader in the distributor base and you have to get a new opti. if you change the distributor aka opti then its a good idea to get a new water pump as well. if water pump goes it leaks on the opti and most times ruins it.

 

I was mistaken, it is the internals for the opti.

From that I read on shbox site I could test points "a" and "d" on my icm harness for 12v current to see if the opti is sending peoper signal. When I checked them they were both between 11.2v and 11.6v.

If I did it right is that a proper test to check functionality of the opti? If not what else can I do to test it.

I will be checking the fuel pressure soon once I can find a guage to borrow, I read that it can be tested by checking the ohms on one of the wires, I didnt read through it all the way but is this a for sure way to see if its burning out?

 

Update:

I hooked up a pressure guage to the schrader valve, when priming I get to about 38-40 psi, when started and idle I am around 32-35psi, when I have someone hit the gas it goes to about 40.

Took the car for a quick drive to watch the pressure, the car died a few blocks from home as I was shifting from drive to park, right when I was passing reverse.
Pressure was at 40 right after it died. I didn't see the gauge till a few seconds after it shut off.

 

fuel pressure not the problem. did you test for spark when it would not run? that would be the next step. sounds like a ignition coil/control module or opti. pull the coil wire and make sure its good on both ends. sometimes they don't get put on all the way and after a time the lose spark eats the end up. look for any lose wires and check connectors to coil, module hooked to coil, harness to opti. harness to opti is a known fail point.

 

Pressure is good, icm/coil are new
How do I check for spark?
Checking wires now.

 

spark checker or unhook plug wire and hook to spark plug, ground the base of the spark plug and have someone turn the engine over. you should see spark at the end of the plug thats supposed to go inside the engine.

 

You want the tester, They can be had at most parts store for under 10 bucks.
90º Inline Ignition Spark Checker

The testers have a built in resistance that emulates the load on the plug as it was under compression. It is much easier to fire a plug not under compression then it is to fire a plug that is under compression. So a plug may fire while out of the motor and not fire after it is installed. (I have seen this many times)

The other down to not having the tester is that if you drop the plug while the car is cranking and the plug can not get to ground you could damage any part of you secondary ignition system. The power will try to "leak out" it will test your system for a weak spots and if it can not find any it will burn right thru the coil. This will cause issues down the road.

Lastly if you pull a plug out and hold the spark near the motor and then spin the car over you better dissable the fuel system. Fuel and air are coming out of the motor as it cranked and if there is ANY spark around you will have a fire. Hey don't laugh I have seen fire damage from people "checking" for spark before.

 

On conventional engines, checking for spark, or hooking up the timing light to the coil wire gives you the same results as hooking it to the #1 plug wire. Will the opti setup work that way as well. I've never tried on mine, but the coil is easier to get to than the plugs are.

 

This too. When I replaced the opti the first time, this failed shortly after and spent a good few days tracking it down to the harness.