I am looking at a swap that will give me a 95 lt1 vette engine in a 80 elky, and I have heard that the optispark is crap, are there any upgraded aftermarket units that will improve upon the weak link?

I am looking at a swap that will give me a 95 lt1 vette engine in a 80 elky, and I have heard that the optispark is crap, are there any upgraded aftermarket units that will improve upon the weak link?

I have a 96 LT1 in my Camino and haven't had any issues with the opti...why is it crap?

The biggest problem with the Opti is that it is behind the water pump. Most people don't pay attention when the pump starts leaking and the Opti gets wet and dies. With a 95 at least you have the upgraded vented Opti.

There are a couple of options even using an LS1 multiple coil setup. But most of these still use the Opti for timing purposes. But no high voltage goes through it. There is also a billet Opti availible but last I heard it was about $600. At that price you can get 3 OE units.

The options are out there but the price is pretty steep.

The biggest problem with the Opti is that it is behind the water pump. Most people don't pay attention when the pump starts leaking and the Opti gets wet and dies. With a 95 at least you have the upgraded vented Opti.

There are a couple of options even using an LS1 multiple coil setup. But most of these still use the Opti for timing purposes. But no high voltage goes through it. There is also a billet Opti availible but last I heard it was about $600. At that price you can get 3 OE units.

The options are out there but the price is pretty steep.

Then there's that...

Forgot to mention that on the LT1/LS1 boards I'm on there are LT1 owners that have 100,000+ miles on their original Opti.

I got 110,000 trouble free miles on the optispark in my 1994 Impala SS...

My 96 Impala has 137,000 with no problems. Cap and rotors are sold seperate for tuneups.

My '96 Impala SS has 156,000 miles, no Optispark problems. I've had a few sets of plug wires start arcing though. It's gone through a set of Taylors and I've had to shorten an MSD set to get rid of a bad spot.

If an MSD unit gives multiple sparks, does it wear out the plugs and plug wires exceedingly fast?

All of these Impala SS's and El Caminoes...
It feels good to be home!!!

For all the bad press the optispark gets, I have a '95 Impala with over 125K miles and a '94 Roadmaster with over 160K miles. They must not be too bad, just misunderstood...