95 camaro z28
93 corvette lt1 motor

I ran into a large puddle of water and the car shut off on me. Took about 1 min to restart the car and it was difficult to start. This all happened monday night, fast forward to wednesday I go to start the car and its once again difficult to start on top of a nice amount of smoke coming out the exhaust.

The water wasnt high enough to be sucked in by the intake but more than enough for the optispark to become submerged.
I replaced the optispark about 2 years and it wasnt fun at all but I remember the car acting very similar to how it is now.

Should I assume its the opti and just replace or take it too a shop to be on the safe side? Car was running ok but I could tell it wasnt 100%

 

you may be right and the opti is toast or could just be wet. could try pulling the wires lose and blow drying them. check the harness that has been a failing point on these, plugin ends fail, the area where the wires enter the opti is another. i add some rvt around the cap seal and the area where the wires enter the opti before installing. also use electrical grease on the plug wire ends to help seal them. its wet in washington so a guys gota be ready.

 

It's going to be a crapshoot

I've never had luck drying an opti which was soaked. I've read that some people have had luck trying that. Silly place for a distributor but it is what it is

 

If the opti got soaked inside, which is very possible, you'll want to take it back off, open it up, and dry/clean all the contacts and the optical reader. Since it's fairly new, and was working perfectly fine before the bath, I see no reason to replace it. It's a distributor like any other distributor, only different.

 

My only issue is I would hate to go through the hassle of taking it off, opening it and then re-installing it to only find out it still wont function correctly. I live in detroit mi so the weather is my biggest concern. We already saw a little snow the other day. Most days from here on out will like be in the 30's or lower.

I believe we may get one more 40 degree which is the day I will try and knock this out. My garage has two motorcycles and a whole bunch of other items in there. Best I could do is pull the maro in half way with a heater near by.

 

That could be your best bet, I toasted my opti by hosing down my engine without covering any important connections such as the opti and distributor. It caused a short that grounded out and caused my battery to drain almost instantly.. When I tried to crank the car the battery would send small amounts of voltage to the starter but could never get enough to activate the fly wheel. If you also have a blow dryer I would take it all apart( while your there clean it and any other electricals that might allow water to stand.