Bear with me here, I have a 97 z28, blew up the motor and put a 94 lt1 with the old style non vented opti in it. The old opti went out, sence i have the newer vented style opti and timing cover I was wondering what exactly I need to convert over to this setup. Do I have to use the crank trigger thats on the newer style timing cover, and switch over the trigger on to the crank it self along with the key that goes into the slot on the crank?. the wiring is in the car already for the trigger, is there and indicator on were top dead center is? I want to put in a new timing kit while I'm at it cause the chain seems to have some slack. If any of you have done this conversion please shed some light on this subject, any problems and a step by step guide would be appreciated. THANK YOU!

 

I believe all that you need is the opti, sensor stuff, front cover and a cam with the correct length dowel on it. Other than replacing those components, I don't think there is anything special about the conversion from replacing the front cover etc. if you were just going with the 1994 style. You should be able to take the front cover from a 96-97. 1995 is a weird year where some of the cars had the 96+ style front cover and some had one only in 1995.

 

I just replaced my bad unvented opti with a vented MSD unit. I'm now convinced that the designers of the LT1 were true sadists!
There were three different timing chain cover designs. 1992-1994.5 for the 1st design unvented opti. Late 1994-95 for the vented 2nd design opti. And 1996-up which also has a separate crank position sensor in the cover.
I'm surprised your engine even ran right at all using the old style opti/timing cover without the crank position sensor sending a signal to the computer.

 

Thanks for the input, i have ordered a new msd cap and rotor for the 97 vented opti. I got a water pump, timing kit, gasket set and a new pan gasket. The pan gasket was twisted in the journal of the timing cover and leaking oil pretty bad so i have to put a new one in. I had to change the key in the crank, waiting for the parts to get here from summit. It did run good with the 94 motor on a 97 ecm, weird sence its all obd2! but I dont have any emissions/ smog/ egr on my car. I dont have smog test in my region, thankfully. I do have a check engine light on i think an o2 censor is bad, I plan changing them and on putting headers on the car with 3 inch pipe all the way to a magnaflow and dual out the rear, NO CATS/ RESINATORS. Any of you have a link to an online manual? please post link or pm me.

 

Did you order that MSD pro billet distributor?

 

no just the msd cap and rotor to put on the vented 97 opti that was on my old bown up motor.

 

so got it all back together, you guys never said how hard this was going to be. lol jk not that bad, that dowl pin in the cam is a pain in the butt to get out and also another problem was the hole in the center of the camshaft were the dowl off the opti goes into the cam, the older style cams dont allow this distributor to fit in the cam. I ended up cutting the shaft part off the distributor with the chop saw got the dowl in and put it all back together new timing kit, msd vented opti, and new water pump. started right up and runs killer, I do have a small oil leak were the pan meets the timing cover and I even changed the gasket, guess i should have used RTV!

 

I guess you didn't take my "sadistic" reference to heart?
The job isn't that bad, just time consuming. But it is bad when you're used to the old style top mount distributor where you can have it off and in your hands in under a minute.