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Tune up on a 96?

MiMitch

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 17, 2004
Messages
48
Location
Greater Deatroit, Mi.
Corvette
1996 Coupe
My 96 developed an engine miss at low rpms,idle to approx. 2000 rpms. I took the car to a dealer and he said it needed a tune up. The car has 126K and I believe everything is still orig.,contrary to what the previous owner told me.Anyway, I was wondering how difficult it is to do a complete tune up, plugs,wires,dist.cap,rotor, etc.? Or should I pay the dealer approx. $800.00 to do it? Any info or opinions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your help in advance, MiMitch
 
$800 is plenty of money to buy the parts and beer for when you're trying to get to those hard to get plugs on that LT1.:L:L:L

The others will soon chime in as to the nightmare it is to change LT1 plugs and wires.
 
Changing plugs on my 94 wasn't all that bad. Took me about 2 1/2 hours and I was really taking my time, being careful etc. I didn't change the wires though, they look tobe a real PITA.
 
Changing plugs on my 93 took about the same. I did manage to get the wires on the passenger side. Attempting the driver side wires....forget it! I couldn't get behind the balancer. I would guess this has to come off unless I missed something. ;shrug
 
Wtih the Opti-spark I don't believe you have a dist. cap and rotor button, but I could be wrong.


:w
 
That's too generic a response for me. There is no standard tune up procedure for an LT-1. It would be better to get a specific diagnosis from a vette shop. Dealer's service departments are not highly regarded here. You could throw a pot of money at it and miss the problem.

You could get the whole thing bulletproof (opti, water pump, wires and plugs) all at once and save money as they are all in the geographic neighborhood on your engine. But if it's a cracked coil wire or something it could be running fine again for very little expense. Just my .02
 
tlong said:
That's too generic a response for me. There is no standard tune up procedure for an LT-1. It would be better to get a specific diagnosis from a vette shop. Dealer's service departments are not highly regarded here. You could throw a pot of money at it and miss the problem.

You could get the whole thing bulletproof (opti, water pump, wires and plugs) all at once and save money as they are all in the geographic neighborhood on your engine. But if it's a cracked coil wire or something it could be running fine again for very little expense. Just my .02
I totally agree.
Do we surmist that you dojn't want to do the work? :w
 
Re; tune up on 96

toms94 said:
Changing plugs on my 94 wasn't all that bad. Took me about 2 1/2 hours and I was really taking my time, being careful etc. I didn't change the wires though, they look tobe a real PITA.

I just looked at the engine compartment and think 2 1/2 hrs. isn't close to being a good guess. The frt. (2) plugs on the pass. side look realitively easy to get at, but the rear (2) appear to be blocked by the heater core and air line going to the exh. manifold. On the drivers side, the frt. (2) are blocked by the A/C unit and the alternater along with the speed control(?) unit. The rear (2) plugs are blocked by the P/B ass'y. and brake lines along with the air hose going to the exh. manifold. Are any of the plugs easier to get at from under the car?

In order to get at the dist. and related components, it appears that the air cleaner and related ducting has to be removed, along with the water pump and maybe the A/C accumulator and related lines.

I think that about covers what I have to do to change the plugs and wires along with the dist. and rel. components.

If I missed anything let me know along with any short cuts or other helpful hints that you may have.

I'm open to any suggestions or advice that any of you have.

Thanks again for your quick reply, MiMitch.
 
I have a documented that I downloaded some time ago from a guy with the handle "C4Cruiser" that is a personal biography of changing plugs & wires that I'm going to try and post as a gallery . . absent that I can post it here if anyone's interested - -or can e-mail it to anyone that wants it as a Word document.

It's instructional and entertaining---an excerpt: One thing I found about changing this stuff, was that there was blood spilled, some very harsh words (my neighbor asked me how many years I had spent in the Navy to be able to come up with the words I yelled out : ) and a good portion of the budget was spent for beer (before, during, and after; especially after!).

I don't want to take up a bunch of bandwidth if only a few people are interested . . again, this isn't my writing -- but a neat guy with Corvettes of Olympia, WA.
Regards-
CQRT in Az
 
CQRT said:
I have a documented that I downloaded some time ago from a guy with the handle "C4Cruiser" that is a personal biography of changing plugs & wires that I'm going to try and post as a gallery . . absent that I can post it here if anyone's interested - -or can e-mail it to anyone that wants it as a Word document.

It's instructional and entertaining---an excerpt: One thing I found about changing this stuff, was that there was blood spilled, some very harsh words (my neighbor asked me how many years I had spent in the Navy to be able to come up with the words I yelled out : ) and a good portion of the budget was spent for beer (before, during, and after; especially after!).

I don't want to take up a bunch of bandwidth if only a few people are interested . . again, this isn't my writing -- but a neat guy with Corvettes of Olympia, WA.
Regards-
CQRT in Az

I would be interested in seeing the document. I've changed the plugs but not the wires. The plug aren't bad with the correct tools.

MCNE
 
I changed the plugs on my 96 LT4 CE; not bad at all. But you do need to move a few things out of your way.

Driver's side:
1. Remove the cruise control cover and unit. Just one bolt for the cover and then two that hold the unit to the inner wheel well. Just kind of sit out of your way.

2. Remove the clamp on the rubber hose going to the metal hose of the exhaust manifold. This is the AIR line. Take one of the two clamps off the rubber hose and pull the rubber hose off of the metal hose.

3. Remove the plug wire separators. Two bolts for each of the two separators. This give you room to get to the plugs.

Passenger's side:
1. Remove the metal AIR line going into the top of the exhaust manifold.

2. The AIR line also connects to the rear of the intake, two bolts in a flange. These are long bolts; take them all the way out. NOTE: There is a support bracket on this hose that slides over a bolt head on the rear of the head. Nothing to take loose, it just slides off/on.

3. Remove wire separators.

Can't help you with the plug wires as I did not change mine at this time. That will be a winter project for me.

Good luck,
LannyL81
Tucson, AZ
 
Tune Up

It was very difficult to change the plugs and wires on my 84, when I get back from Korea my 95 will need that stuff and I will definetly have my mechanic perform this repair. Lot's of people with C4s have had trouble with a miss and have lot's of different answers to the problem from simple to very complex. For example a friend just changed his spark plugs on a C4 with about the same milage as yours and it fixed the miss. Another friend spent all kinds of money and replaced pretty much everything and still has the miss. So good luck I would recommend having a good mechanic do this job, than if you still have the miss, you can take it back and they will have to try and figure it out.
 
Hrtbeat1 said:
Wtih the Opti-spark I don't believe you have a dist. cap and rotor button, but I could be wrong.


:w

The Opti does have a cap and rotor to replace. If you have 126K and a misfire, you're better off replacing them (most likely that's where your miss is coming from). It's a PITA to do, naturally... and you need a special socket to accomplish it (deep E4 inverted Torx). Of course, you have to pull the water pump and balancer (good time to inspect/replace the water pump). Cap and rotor kits aren't cheap, but you don't have to replace them all that often either.
The plugs aren't all that bad to change. If you think a Vette is hard, try an F-body sometime...:ugh
 

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