Just Got mine

[My Prozac]

I just got my 93 ruby red convertible and need some advice, I got the car last weekend it has just under 29,000 miles on her and is in great shape. I drove home about 250 miles and it never missed a beat all the way.
I did a stupid thing and I got the motor wet on Saturday... It would not run on Saturday night. I did not drive it on Sunday or even start it. I have drove it once yesterday and after warming up it started to splutter and miss. My question is does this sound like a spark plug wire breaking down and holding water or the dreaded opti-spark. My chevy dealer is backed up and can not get to me until Wednesday or Thursday. Is there anything that I can try?

 

[vette-dude]

I just got my 93 ruby red convertible and need some advice, I got the car last weekend it has just under 29,000 miles on her and is in great shape. I drove home about 250 miles and it never missed a beat all the way.
I did a stupid thing and I got the motor wet on Saturday... It would not run on Saturday night. I did not drive it on Sunday or even start it. I have drove it once yesterday and after warming up it started to splutter and miss. My question is does this sound like a spark plug wire breaking down and holding water or the dreaded opti-spark. My chevy dealer is backed up and can not get to me until Wednesday or Thursday. Is there anything that I can try?

I believe the 93's are equipped with an opti spark ignition and sounds like you have gotten it wet. This is under the waterpump on the front of the engine. Most likely it is now a dead soldier and they aren't cheap to replace. If you do replace it be sure and think about replacing the waterpump also as other than washing your engine down, water pumps are the leading cause of Opti failures. Sorry this happened.

Randy

 

[1995 RedVette]

It sounds a lot like the opti got wet. I had a throttle body heater hose blow out on my 95 and wet the top of the opti pretty good, and fixed it by propping a hair dryer up in the engine compartment so it would blow between the watter pump and the opti. I went in from the passenger side and ziptied the hair dryer up to the air intake. I left the hair dryer on cold because I didn't know how hot it would get, and I didn't want it to melt any connectors on the opti spark. I let the thing run for the better part of a day, and have had no trouble since. If that doesn't fix the problem, then it looks like you're in for a new opti spark. When you have all of that taken down, it may not be a bad idea to have the plugs, wires, fan belt, radiator hoses, and water pump replaced too. At the very least I would change the radiator hoses and water pump, because if one or the other fails in the future, then there goes another optispark unit. Rembember, even though the car only has 29000 miles, it is still 12 years old.

One more thing....I have found that it is best to use a spray bottle of warm water and mile detergent to clean the engine. I also use a compressed air hose to dry the excess water form the engine.

Brett

 

[94conv.]

Sounds like you have gotten the opti spark wet. Mine did the same thing last winter when it apparently was drawing moisture from sitting. It sputtered real bad then would let out a huge backfire and die. I had it carried over to the dealership and the sprayed some sort of drying agent in it through one of the vaccuum holes and it did the trick and hasnt acted up since. I got lucky but its definately worth a try and it may dry out on its own and be alright. The 92- early 94 optisparks have a poor vaccuum design to suck out the moisture. They make a upgrade kit that you can purchase at mid america, I havent done this so I dont know how involved it is.

 

[94conv.]

By the way, you dont ever want to get the front of your LT1 engine wet

 

[RoadReady]

If you do have to replace the Opti-Spark, C4 guru Gordon Killebrew says to run a thick bead of RV sealer around the Opti where it touches the block to keep moisture out, and install the upgrade kit. The 95-96 is much improved. I have driven many miles in monsoon-like rains and washed the engine with Greased Lightening and a garden hose several times....no failure in 80K.

 

[My Prozac]

Thanks for the help.... Should the car be towed to the dealer or will it hurt to drive about 15 to 20 miles?

 

[Tuna]

The first thing you can try is to heat the OptiSpark with a hair dryer for about 45 minutes. There is room in the right front of the engine bay to prop up a hair dryer and point it at the OptiSpark. Just lock the switch and walk away for awhile. If the OptiSpark isn't permanently damaged already, drying it out may salvage it for a long time to come. Otherwise, it's a trip to the dealer or you favorite garage.

 

[jmccloud]

Hair dryer

By all means, try the hair dryer. I can't count the times it's saved my vehicles or tractors from difficult, tedious and expensive repair.

 

[Daryllawman]

Just wanted to welcome you to the Corvette Action Center..Sorry to hear about the OPTIC spark.....I wish we could of told you about the Optic before you sprayed it with water.....we live and learn here , so just jump right in anytime.....good luck

 

[My Prozac]

Will it hurt the motor in any way to drive it with the opti sprak fried?

 

[jmccloud]

Driving 'wet'

If an ignition system is 'wet', driving it will 'track' inside the distributor cap. Carbon-like tracks will form that will make future arcing more likely. Dry it out first if at all possible.

 

[redc4corvette]

Also don't drive it in the rain unless you have to.
I drove mine last year and it rained 4 inches in an hour and the cars stalled on the road, I was one of them and the water rose about 18 inches to much for the Opti.

 

[Paul G]

Will it hurt the motor in any way to drive it with the opti sprak fried?

It depends on how far you have to go? I would not drive it to the next state but across town should not hurt anything. Keep the speed down and baby it there, it should be okay. As far as additional tracking and ruining the opti goes. it's dead already isnt it? If you have to go for the opti replace the water pump as well. It will already be off the car so might as well put a new one. Labor is already paid for. Plug wires are kind of the same way but they will last 100,000 miles, so they have a long life ahead of them yet.

 

[Edmond]

I hope the hairdryer works. Those Opti units are not cheap! They can last for a long time, my mom's 94' Buick Roadmaster had an LT1 in it, when she donated the car earlier this year, it had 115,000 miles on it.

 

[My Prozac]

The dealer has it now

I tried the hair dryer to no avail, so the dealer has the car now. From what I described to them about the how I got it wet and how it did run for the 15 mile trip from the house to the dealer they thought that two pistons are not firing at low RPM but they still had hope that it could be saved without replacing it.

Thanks to all that tried to help.... live and learn

 

[wishuwerehere82]

I don't know if this would be something to try in the future, but here goes. When I was building electronic sub-assemblies, we would clean components in a water based detergent, then rinse them with water. To dry the water,we would rinse the components in 2-Propanol then blow dry them with compressed air. The Propanol absorbs the water and dries within seconds without leaving any residue. This may be the "trick" that the dealers use to correct the problem without replacing the optical sensor.

 

[My Prozac]

I got my car back friday night with good news and bad news, the good news I did kill the optispark by getting it wet though that did not help, the waterpump did..(a great who done it) I guess setting and only being driven 6000 miles in 10 years will cause a lot of things to leak. I had to have the waterpump and the optispark replaced, they did their best to seal up the new optispark with extra RTV but nothing will keep it totally safe, while they did all that they found two bad plug wires, they had started to dry rot. I also had the cooling system flushed and Mobile 1 with an AC filter put on. The guys went over the car from top to bottom and could not find any thing else. They did tell me to drive it as much as possible. Going to a Chevrolet dealer did give me a warrenty life time on the water pump and 12000 on the optispark and if the pump takes out the optispark it is covered as part of the Goodwrench Service Plus. It now runs as good as if not better then new. The real bad news was the bill $1600, :cry I asked if I got a free Tshirt or anything they said no but did give me 10% off the next thing I have done. HAHAHAHA

 

[wishuwerehere82]

Oh man, I hope you have some preparation H handy.

 

[G Winter]

A couple months ago I had a conversation with a patrolman, while he was making out my warning . Iowa used to use the Impalas with the LT motors in them . He questioned weather I had the LT motor . I told him I was glad I didn't cause of the problems if they get wet and not run. He thought for a moment and said, " Come to think of it we did have a lot of trouble with them quiting on us bucking snowbanks." So it is not only the vettes that had the problem.
At least you shouldn't have to pay for one anytime soon.