WOW how the hell did you get that deal!!? wish i would have found that first lol

 

I bought the car late last fall and knew my opti was bad. It sat over the winter so I had a little time to shop. Kept searching on ebay and one finally popped up. It was a private seller who bought it and never used it.

 

Well, I have the one that got fixed 3 times if anybody wants it. MSD "fixed" it and I haven't used it since. I did however, plug the opti pigtail into it, the coil wire into it and a plug wire with a plug in the end and laid that on the intake, turned the key on, spun the shaft and it fired. It's got maybe 600 miles on it. If anybody wants it, just holler at me. It's just sitting in my tool box.

 

I'm gonna whisper this so my MSD opti can't hear, don't wanna give it any ideas.
But, what was it that kept going bad with the one you had? Did MSD tell you what they fixed?

 

The first time it wasted the optical sensor for some odd reason, they didn't know why, the second time it shorted the high and low voltage sides out, which is apparently what happens to the stock ones and the 3rd time it wasted the optical sensor because of some kind of damage that was caused by the shorting the 2nd time, I don't really know. The 3rd time they completely rebuilt it, the only thing that's original in it now is the wiring and the billet base.

 

That's kinda what I was suspecting. Physically, the MSD unit is built like a tank compared to the original one. The quality of the optics I suspect could be a different matter.

 

back to my dieing problem..i have water leak on the pass side upper rad hose where it meets the thermo housing. fixed that i think. leaks a few drips over night and falls to that upper pass side waterpump bolt and sits in that crevice. i have code 36 when i flash it. ignition faliure. when i put the motor in bout 3 months ago the opti looked great and didnt replace it. now when i look down at it, the plug looks corroded at the neck where it meets the opti.not real bad but wasnt there before. took my squirt gun and shot at it a couple times, started idling funny, boucing around 2 or 3 hundred rpm.didnt die tho. ya think thats the begining of the end of the opti? cant be cleaned up or anything like that? hard to belive it happens that fast. wiring itself looks fine.

 

sounds like u have had water dripping on the opti for too long. opti does not like water. fix the leak before u change the opti. if the water pump is old change it while ur doing the opti.

 

Are you talking about the harness plug into the opti? Pull it, dry it, clean it, put dielectric grease on it, and stick it back in.

 

no water and its been a few days. water pump is fine as i put an elec one in during the build. corrosion isnt at the plug itself but just past that connection at the base of the neck on the opti. like crabman said i think thats been leaking a while. maybe when i put antifreeze in there bout a month ago. anyways just gonna wait and see what pops up on ebay, got the whole winter to find one. 3 inches of snow here last week. damn.