I've got a 93 camaro v8, I work at a mechanic shop and I'm completely lost on what to do to this car, it died on me with a code 41 one day while driving but would start up if left to cool, so I drove it into the shop and replaced the icm since it was the easiest fix and after that it wouldn't start at all, so I put the old one back on and it would start and run.....so I thought ok maybe they sent the wrong one, well I have put 2 more on since then (3 icm total) and all of which only made the problem worse....again it would run off my old icm but the last time I pulled it off the back plate came off with it it must have been on it's last leg. I had recently replaced the opti a year ago, and have had two rebuilt ecm's put in now, the car will run off of starting fluid smooth, but the injectors are cut off within a second of the car starting. Does anyone at all have any idea what the problem could be? Could I really have been sent 3 bad ICM's in a row? Does the same Icm work for the v6 that works for v8? Will a 94 icm work on a 93? Any help would be appreciated.

 

What brand opti did you install a year ago? The market is flooded with the China made knock offs and if it lasted a year then you are doing better then most people.

ICM turning off fuel signal? That does not sound right. Can you hook up a scan tool and look for the Opti input. I am guessing it is dropping signal randomly.

 

That could be the problem, I remember buying it on eBay because it was cheap, but it was my understanding that if you were to scope test the red/black wire coming off the distributor, it should have simply have no breaks or skips? And I maybe misunderstood exactly how it works, but supposedly when code 41 sets the computer tells the injectors to shut down

 

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It runs smooth off of starting fluid, if the optic were bad would that not mean it was ok?

 

If code 41 is setting they ECM can cut injector pulse to avoid flooding the engine. DO you have a manual? There should be a code 41 trouble tree. It is losing reference signal somewhere. The manual should tell you what to test first.

 

here is one. sounds like you may have a wiring issue or one of the connectors is messed up and not happy

 

Sounds like a bad Opti harness or Opti.

Do yourself a favor and buy a quality AC Delco/Delphi/MSD opti. Yeah it's more $$ but it sucks doing the job. Personally I like the MSD because the harness is built in, it's vented for us 93 cars, and rebuildable.

 

There are tons of post from people that did not make it 2 months with ebay opti's.

 

my question is though, if the opti is bad why will it still run off of starting fluid?

 

if the opti is not telling the computer the engine is turning the computer will not tell the injectors to fire.