Hey guys, welcome back to legit Streetcars and welcome back to legit Street quarters I've made it back from West Virginia with the new Trans Am WS6 and everything was going perfect except. Peter Informed me that while I was gone he moved the C4 around a few times and it is running like complete garbage. So we got a total of one day of it running good in the last C4 video and that's about all you get with an old LT1. Oh and this is our first video back with Peter Yeah and the last one you guys saw it was on the Corvette which was now a few videos ago Peter was sick and he had to take a day off Peter How are you running? Most importantly: I am firing on all cylinders. How many cylinders are you? Peter uh I think I think I'm a boosted sex right now. All right, he's working. He's working his way up to boost the V8. All right, we're gonna convert him. But anyway, uh, fire this bad boy up. Come on baby. Oh this is horrible. This is running so bad. What happened what happened LT1 give it, give it a little blip. it's so rich. Oh my. God Whoa. Okay, all right, that's enough. this thing is barely running. uh is running very very rich. Not only are we smoking out the shop He's Got The Black Lung again. oh Peter you can't have another day off. You're fine. So anyway I would drive it for you guys but when we were moving it around, it died a bunch of times and I don't want to follow out our brand new spark plugs that were a big pain in the butt to install. So in the last Corvette video I said in the next one which is this one right now that we were going to install a wideband O2 sensor and a gauge and take this Corvette out and beat on it and we are still totally gonna do that. We just have to fix this issue first. So without further Ado Let's Get Right to Work First Things First let's check for some OBD1 trouble codes. Ignition on and here is our Aldl connector: I Do not have an OBD1 scanner but I do have a paper clip. Oh check it out, it's got an old school iPod connector. Cool! So we're going to do here is: Jump these two pins. yeah, you hear the fan? come on And then we're looking for some flashes here. One one, two, that's 12. we should get three of those. One one, two, that's another one and I think I missed one when I was still down there. One one, two, three, four, five, six. Okay, so that's our first trouble code. so it'll Flash the trouble code a total of three times. So we were getting sixteen three times and then after that it went back to 12. Which means that 16 is the only trouble code. If there were more after it flashed 16 three times, it would have flashed the second code three times, and so on and so forth. I Just unplugged my OBD1 scanner and that code 16 is for a low resolution signal issue from the Opti spark. So now that that's done, we got to get into ignition and you guys know where this is all going: the wonderfully designed Opti spark. And if you guys are not familiar with Opti Spark or maybe you've just heard that as kind of an old buzzword back in 90s GM History Here's what it's all about. In 1992, the Corvette not only received GM's new LT1 engine, but a new ignition system called Opti-spark It replaced the traditional top mount distributor that referenced spark delivery using a pickup coil and a time-based method with a system that used Optical sensors and a slotted disk that not only registered 360 degrees of crankshaft rotation, but also assigned each cylinder with a slightly different slot so the engine's computer could control ignition advance and specifically for that cylinder which was unheard of in Prior traditional. Distributors This system bridged the gap between the old school Distributors and what we see today with modern coil on plug ignition. Its benefits include being able to run a high spark advance for more power due to increased Precision no need for mechanical spark advance and Superior cold start control with the incorporation of the intake air temperature sensor in the engine's Computer Logic Its downside was it was placed behind the water pump and below the front of the intake so you know where I'm going here. A leak from either would ruin the Opti-spark sensitive Optical sensor and if that didn't do it in moisture would rust the internal components. GM Had a major Factory defect on its hands until the Opti Sparks revision with a vented unit which I'll cover later in this video. All right now that you guys know exactly how Opti-spark works, I'm going to show you how to diagnose it electronically so we're not throwing hard to reach and expensive Parts at our Corvette and we scoured the internet and found some old threads before social media. These threads are from like the early 2000s and one guy had posted up the exact diagnosis procedure from GM. So we are going to be following some electrical tests to figure out if the Opti-spark is bad and then we're gonna like And subscribe this video because that is the most important step in diagnosing the Opti-spark but because we live in the real world here at legit street cars, we are going to throw a coil at it. We are going to throw one part at this car because we have a date on this coil and it is aftermarket and it's 2013. So this is a 10 year old coil and we have an extra one from all the other GM products that I've had. This is kind of our test coil, especially if we're on the road and it takes about two seconds bam to do that. So it's probably quicker just to throw this coil in here, see if that fixes it, and then move on. So with that, let's see if it runs any better. Fire in the hole. Yeah, that should be pretty immediate if it was the coil. Give it a little throttle feeder. Oh yeah, not that all right. Shut it down. Shut it down. Okay, coil didn't fix it I didn't really think it would, but again, it's just an easy thing to do. So why not? Let's get to diagnosing the proper way. All right. hang on before we get to that. I Have to show you guys the most valuable tool that I use when buying cars from the auction and normal clean title cars from a private party or a dealership. And that's with Auto Astat.com So this site will show you auction results with pictures. It'll show you the final price, it'll show you the title status and much much more. And because you guys have been asking me how I buy auction cars since I got such a sweet deal on this Corvette I Gotta show you this site because you can't buy anything without it quite frankly. So check this out. You go to Copart you find a 2014 E350 Mercedes and it looks phenomenal. You're about to bid on this card only a 71 000 miles. You type in the VIN on auto A stat and Bam Here is what the car looked like. Just a few months months ago, this thing was completely destroyed with airbag deployment and everything. It sold for fifty three hundred dollars with a salvage title. It wouldn't start, they couldn't read the odometer. This is a pretty bad car and this is what it looks like now, so you'd want to know that information. But let's just say you don't even buy rebuilt title cars. You only buy cars with clean titles, right? Well, this one just sold with a clean title. Echo Park For almost sixty thousand dollars. Let's see what it looked like when it sold for forty six thousand. Here We Go Passenger Side Damage looks pretty bad. we have airbag deployment, this rocker is definitely crushed in, and this car could be sold at a dealer. It's a 2020 to a seven thousand miles for probably seventy thousand dollars. And because it has a clean title, you may never have known that it was in this wreck. Here's a Clean Title Yukon That just sold for 50. Check out this clean title. Mustang This thing was a complete disaster. They slapped a quarter on it airbag deployment. It's going to sell as a clean title car. You'd never know without this site. Last one 2022 LTZ Silverado So this thing looks absolutely beautiful. but look at what it sold for eighteen thousand dollars. Totally destroyed Now I'm not saying don't order a VIN history report like auto check, but you're not going to get anywhere near the details like the accident pictures. and if you sign up for one of their subscriptions at Autowastat.com using my link down below, you're gonna get a massive discount on those Vin reports. They're only a few dollars if you're a member and I was able to work out a discount for you guys. So when you click on my link, you're gonna get a surprise discount automatically applied. so definitely check it out. All right. First step is to remove this ignition coil and we'll put this back in our arsenal of test tools and parts that we bring on the road because it's a very common GM coil and we'll probably end up buying some kind of old abandoned GM product at some point again. So right now I'm removing this connector here for the ignition control module, which is right here and also a common failure point on older GM ignition systems. So this could be the issue, but we're going to electrically diagnose that and then we have our ground for our meter hooked up directly to the negative terminal on the battery and we'll click this into DC Volts and the first step is going to be the ICM the ignition control module and we're testing pin A to ground and with the key on we should have 10 Volts! Give me some ignition pita better. No, you don't you need keys. So what's really nice with this is we don't necessarily need a wiring diagram. It says pin A B C D so we know exactly which one that is. Put our meter right here and we have 11.7 volts. So we just need at least 10 volts. So essentially battery voltage is what we're looking for and we have that. Next step is same connector. we're testing pin D to ground. Again, we should have at least 10 volts. All right. So pin D's right here. Bam and 11.6 battery voltage. So we're good there. All right. So we're sticking with that connector. We're going to go to pin B to ground and we have to click over to Ac voltage on the meter. and we're looking for one to four while cranking. So we're switching over to AC or alternating current. So this is set up just like it would be if you were testing current at your home because this is going to be switching current. so everything runs on DC with a car, but with the Opti spark. What it's looking for is actually an alternating current in this case. All right. So we'll go to Pin B I'm going to kind of just hold that, go ahead and crank Peter There we go. 1.8 1.92 Yeah, we're good. So that is right in Spec one to four volts while cranking. so we're good there. Now we're going to test the last pin which is C and we're gonna click over here to resistance and if we go to this one, it'll beep at us. We like beeps right? All right, So let's see so then we can play music with this as well. Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom. I What year was that one Crazy train was that eight? I don't know what year 80s? let's just pretend it was a popular song. when this 93 Corvette came out I think it was still right. It was like right, yeah, this had a cassette. doesn't sound like let's get an aftermarket radio. it had a cassette for sure. What year was Ozzy Osbourne's Crazy Train song 1980 train is the debut solo singled by English Heavy Metal Vocalist 1980 I was off by 13 years but it was still a popular song when the C4 came out initially. yes, in 84. still an old song in 84. Okay, I kind of messed that one up but I like the song, we're kind of on a crazy train ride of Diagnostics so we now know that all the wiring is good so this could actually be a bad ignition control module. Now in my experience, if you have a bad one of these, the car just straight up dies and won't even start. But I have heard of this cause in the engine to run rough so they do sell a tester for the ignition control module which I don't have and these things heat up. That was a big failure point with them is they would heat up and go bad. So there's a heat sink here from the factory and then this special grease and this is an aftermarket one. so this has been replaced. so I don't really suspect that this is the issue, but again, we're working in the real world here. This guy is very easy to replace. I actually have a test one a good known GM part. so we're going to throw this in there and I will leave you guys a link to the ignition control module tester if you want to get one. I might invest in one of those as well. but there's more than one way to skin a cat so you can either invest in that tester or if you have a known good part you can give that a try as well. Who came up with more than one way to skin a cat dude? I Have no idea that's got to be one of the weirdest ones. You know that's at least like 300 years old, but why would you be skinning a cat that wasn't like a common animal that people would eat, right? I'd Imagine it's two guys at like some sort of inner Pub and they're discussing or arguing which is the better way to skin a cat and agree to disagree. There's more than one way to skin a cat. Well, like what was the function of skinning cats? Where cats? like commonly eaten, then you needed to skin them. Or were they just taking the they would be worn little cats? Is that like an old, uh, like an old medieval occupation right? What year, right? Yeah, what year did that come from? And the fact that it survived the 2022 is a common Say no in questions these Saints so just so many of them make no sense. But we say them anyway. You know what? I'm I'm coming up with a new one. There's more than one way to test an ignition control module that's a little more lunky. that'll that could catch on I Think the cot. You're right. You know what. And then another 300 years when people go around saying there's more than one way to to test an ignition control. That's right. it's going to be right here. They're going to be two idiots who are sitting over old cars. They'll be like a Netflix documentary on sayings and that'll be it. And they'll find The Archives of YouTube 300 years from now. This is the first place you've heard it, guys. All right. So when it picks up, there's more than one way to diagnose an Ism. ICM What did I say? ISO ISM ICM I don't I don't know. All right. So we're just gonna plug this in and uh, let's get our coil. Thanks. Oh, we got continuity somewhere. it just touched something. Let's get our coil in there and we'll just run it and see what happens. It was already replaced so it's probably won't fix it, but it's aftermarket. You never know. All right here we go. Come on now. LT1 I Know you want a new Optuspark, but it's difficult. It's in the air somewhere. Why? Why? All right, let's kill her that didn't fix it. What's nice with electronic issues is that typically you'll know right away if it fixed it and this thing still runs like garbage. When we finally figure out what's wrong with this, it should just fire up and run perfectly right away. And I do think it said Opti But let's keep going. We got opti-spark tests next. So this is the opti-spark connector. They give you one to work on easily up here. the other one is buried down there. So there is a harness. This guy right here. This is a replaceable harness that goes to the Opti So this harness could you know could have an issue. That's possible. All right. So we just turned the ignition on. We're going to leave that on for these tests here and once again, GM has labeled all of our pins on the connector for us so you can see the D right there. So it's A B C D so we don't need a wiring schematic. Our first test is pin A to ground. We should have 5 volts with the key on and we do. Then our next step is simply pin B to ground. We should have 5 volts and we do. If it's not exactly five, this is perfectly fine. If you see like three or something like that, then I would suspect an issue now. Pin C should be 12 volts. Okay, battery voltage. Again, if it's pretty close, you're good. All right. So our next test is going to be Ohms of Resistance. We're checking for continuity. click it over to Ohms, we'll hear our beep and we are checking pin Four to Battery Ground. Uh, let's see how low can we go? Is it going right to 1-1 Yeah, it's going right to 1.1 Ohms. Okay, this is the thread that says 0 to 0.2 Ohms of ground with key off. And then we found this, which is probably more accurate. This is actually a training document from GM on how to diagnose the opti-spark and it just says here: D to ground the circuit should have continuity, which we do have. So I think that's fine. All right. So right now what I want to do is open up the engine's computer. This is an OBD1 car. So we have an access panel in the back and we should have an Eprom chip and because this has a supercharger, this should be. These are kind of loose. This should be an aftermarket Eprom, so that's how you tune these. You just stick this little piggyback type of chip in there after you've told the company who makes it what modifications you have, so we obviously have the supercharger. We also determine that we have 42 pound fuel injector, so you would definitely need a tune even if you didn't have the blower just from going to those bigger injectors. The factory ones are only 24 pounds, so these would basically spray in almost double the fuel if it was running on the stock tune. And so if we take this off there we go. There is our little chip. Uh, let's see Moats.net memory adapter I've never heard of that. Then again, I haven't really modified any LT1 cars, but that's probably an aftermarket chip. Oh what is that? Is that? Like the factory chip that's just laying in here for storage? Wait, what is going on here That is very strange? Are we gonna fish this thing out? Oh, hang on. I Just wanna I Was gonna check the pins on this anyway because this thing is just running really rich. At the end of the last video, we drove it around and it was running okay. but I didn't really go Full Throttle or anything even close to that and it was still running pretty rough. but I just chalked it up to the fact that we hadn't looked at the fuel system yet. But anyway, here is that chip. This is crazy guys. What is this thing inside of the engine computer that's just laying here? I mean it's a connector. but where does it go? Why is it What is going on some C4 Archeology right here I Guess this is some serious Indiana Jones Stuff going on right now guys. Is it connected to anything? I don't think it's I Mean it's just flapping around in here. so I don't think it's connected. If it is, it's not connected very well. All right. I can't get that out. So let's pull the connectors and see how far we can take this engine computer down. We must discover the mystery of the engine computer. Okay, all right, let's see what we got here. I Don't know why I'm messing around with hand tools. We have the technology there we go. I Gotta say, this engine computer is really, really sealed up. It's a good thing and you really have this computer locked in here like crazy. Fort Knox It's crazy. Okay, this computer is not coming apart. but I think I moved it just enough to get this guy out. That's all we really care about. This is the factory Eprom. Did they just put it in there for safe keeping? That is so weird. You think they just throw it in the glove box if they wanted to hang on to it because this was rattling around in the engine computer. It could technically break something. but yeah, I think this is all that is. That's what it is. This is the factory chip, huh? Yeah. Delco Okay, all right, so let's plug this computer back in. We put the aftermarket chip in because we're to assume that was specifically designed to run the fuel injectors and for the Supercharger. So right now we've eliminated the ignition control unit as a possible cause the coil and all of the associated wiring except for this little piggyback harness that goes to the Opti. So if that checks out which we're going to check at this point, I would say it's a bad Opti but we do still have something easy we can eliminate from the system and that is all this MSD stuff. So we have our MSD boxes there. We have an MSD box here and it's just something that we could simply unplug and remove from the system. And what do we have here? Yeah, Okay, yeah. and then we just eliminate all of these connections that were done probably a really long time ago. All right. So all we have to do it seems like is unplug this guy here. So this is the MSD part of it and then that condenses it down to one plug. So all of this right here is aftermarket and from the factory. It was just simply plugged in like this with two connectors. All right, snap our coil back in. So now we have no more MSD ignition anything. All right, let's see how she runs. Okay, it's worse. This is getting worse and worse as we move along. Okay, all right. Well, there you have it. MSD wasn't causing it, but we'll just leave this disconnected for now. All right. We have the multimeter connected directly to the battery ground and right now we're just checking some grounds that we found under here. This looks to be all of the main grounds going right to the engine block. So again, zero Ohms right there. Just another one of these wires. They all go to the same place. Zero Ohms and there is one all the way up there. and Zero Ohms on that guy too. Okay, cool. I Think we're pretty good on grounds. Let's move on to the Opti Sparkle wiring harness connector. We'll test that out. All right. So let's take off this funky looking air intake system here. and a lot of you guys had mentioned this right here. There's a sensor and it's not connected to anything that is the intake air temperature sensor, but the harness has been extended and they relocated it here so this is effectively just working as a plug. Look at this, we have an airfoil. This was an add-on little modification you could buy back in the day and they claimed like five horsepower or something like that I don't know changes. The air velocity probably does nothing at all. all right. So there is our optic connector. Very difficult to reach so we could probably get in here with a pick tool and just be gentle. All right. Then we could just pull this guy out. There we go. and this is the connector that's going to the Opti connector we were testing earlier. All right, so we can check continuity from this end of the connector to there. Or we can just repeat the test we did earlier and see if we have the same results and that would be just as easy. So if you remember, pin A 5 volts pin B 5 volts and Pin C battery voltage with the key on. So we're good there. All right. So now we've switched over to Ohms of resistance. We're going to check D and the key has to be off for this. By the way, when you're checking for resistance, there we go. We should go down to one one. when you're checking for resistance you don't want the consumer on. Do we have less resistance now with this little jumper plugged in, That is funny. Okay, yeah, so 0.4 That's great. All right. At this point with all of our tests, we are replacing the Opti spark. First, we have to drain the coolant because we have to remove the good old water pump. Now let's take a look at our decks. Cool, Not bad. It's clean. That is some nice coolant right there. It looks like the stuff that came out of the lightning. Yeah, I wish this is what the stuff that came out of the lighting looked like. That was horrible. Worst cooling I've ever seen. Oh wow. look at this. We do have a little bit of a leak here. It looks like it's from the thermostat housing. Maybe the gasket is bad. The coolant wasn't dripping on the ground. It's not low or anything, but that could ruin the Opti for sure. if that didn't ruin it, that did all right. We drained all the coolant too, but uh, there's always some left. I Guess it's cool. It looks really clean. looks beautiful. I'm definitely gonna get a new thermostat in there though. Come on baby. this thing is on in there. there. We go. almost there, all right. We'll disconnect the coolant temperature sensor right there. All right. So we're taking the belt loose because we have to take the harmonic balancer out, which honestly at this point looks physically impossible with the steering rack. This is not fun at this point. I Think the F-body guys definitely have it a lot easier with the opti-spark This looks like a nightmare to do. All right. Here's our first bolt for the water pump. Oh, it's actually surprisingly loose. Okay, how's this guy? Much tighter? much tighter. Okay, you never know who's worked on your car people. Someone did not tighten that bolt down there very well. I mean I don't think it was leaking though, so that's good. Okay, there we go. Got that out. Looks like there's a little sealant on this. Bolt Okay, more of the same and it doesn't look like it, but I'm really hoping we don't have to take the supercharger off to get this water pump out. Okay I Took the bottom bolt out and we have coolant coming out I Gotta say, after draining the radiator, we still have lost a ton of coolant. All right, there is a bolt behind the supercharger bracket I Tried to get with my socket I Broke it loose but then the socket fell off. Might have to take the supercharger off. All right with the coil out. I Can get to this Bolt Very difficult though I Lost a socket in the abyss. Hopefully we can find that otherwise with the Corvette forever. this one was a pain. All right. Last bolt for the water pump coming out. there. you go. Oh, you're not getting away from me buddy. Aha magnet. Yes, you caught a big one. I Got it all right. Here we go or coolant. I'm sure look at the drain pan underneath there, but I don't know how much of it it's catching. There is no room on a Corvette at all. stuck. This is not fun guys. Why didn't they just put the distributor on top? Geez, All right. I'm gonna take the belt tensioner off right now. That might give me enough room to swing it down. It's either we take the supercharger, the power steering pump, or hopefully just this belt tensioner off to get this out. It's only one bolt though, so that's nice and we can get to it. I'll take what I can get people? Okay, got one long bolt out for the tensioner. All right. So let's loosen up this power steering pump. get that out of the way, and get our water pump out of here. I Think Okay, there's another bolt. Great. Okay, our steering pump just needs to be moved. Think and refuse to take this supercharger off to do this. Water pump. Oh my gosh, this is so uh. what did I just break? Oh, that's the Opti spark connector. Okay, that's okay. I'll take it all right. That's all you got to do. Yep, yeah, so in real life that took like five minutes of me going like this and like this and and then breaking the opti-spark connector. So great. Thanks Chevy Appreciate it. All right? let's just remove this tensioner since we're in there. Anyway, All right with the belt off. we're holding the center harmonic balancer bolt and we're going to be removing three from around it. Okay, and then we should be able to remove this harmonic balancer. although it does not look like there's a lot of room, so I'm sure that won't be fun. All right. So I've gotten the last bolt loose and coming out there. we go, so we have a total of three there. Now we can remove this guy and now this balancer should. Just you know, Just you just pull it out. That's it's easy. Nothing to it. It's not gonna get stuck in here to give us any issues. No. All right. so this harmonic balancer is not budging at all. I'm gonna get some pre-oil penetrating oil in here. Man, we're trying to break free a flange that's been kind of really rusted on or corroded on for many years. All right guys. So we're going to try a little trick so we don't have to beat on this crank too much. I'm just putting one of the balancer bolts back in all the way and then just loosen it up like a half turn. Now we're going to start the engine all right. shut it off, all right. So hopefully that loosened her up a little bit. All right. So now if it's moved out a little bit, this should be tight. Which it is. So that means that the bouncer backed out a little before we take this all the way out. Let's just see if it's going to go anywhere again. Only pry on your Opti if you're replacing it. You will ruin it. Yeah. I Think this is sliding off now. Let's see. did that get tighter? Yes, it did. Okay, cool. let's just go ahead and take this bolt up all the way. Yeah, so a lot of guys will beat on this with a 2x4 which could break it loose, but there is an easier way you can see it kind of going back and forth. Now keep in mind it's probably been on here for like 30 years, so come on baby! a little back and forth. Affair Almost All right. Someone's definitely done the wires. and we know that because they're aftermarket and they are labeled. So this should be Five, three, seven, one on this side, three that looks like seven ish and one. Yeah, okay, he's got this side right. So then this should be four, six, eight, two, and I don't know what that is. Let's Pretend that's a four that does look like a six. Yeah, that one says eight I Can see that already. Doing the wires on these is just just a nightmare. It should be a two. I Don't really know what that says. so at this point let's just go ahead and remove the notorious Opti-sparkman It is very grimy in here, which is probably why this thing failed. So it wasn't just the failure of the water pump that would fry these. it could be oil as well. So we definitely have to fix an oil leak in here before we go back together with the new one. So I think that's what's going on. All right, Last one. So this is our drive for the water pump and this doesn't need to be timed or anything. it's just spinning a water pump so it's not kiwait. So we'll remove this and then we'll remove our Opti There we go. All right. Here is our nasty, nasty and faulty. Opti Very well could be the original Look at this thing. Now this is Spline specifically so it only goes back on one way. so we're good to go there. But how about we dissect this guy and see what failed? Does it taste bad? Peter I Don't know how many more engine parts I can taste. This is spline though too, so this can't go in wrong. It tastes like metal again and oil. Well now you know what a bad opti-spark thing tastes like. So the next time you'll know I'll know if it's bad just by removing our little Opti drive shaft and then this is a seal right here and that can't be in the best of condition either. Yeah, this seal has been like wobbling around. That could be an issue. Front cover is definitely coming off. All right. let's take apart our nasty Opti spark and see what we can see. I'm very curious if this is the original or not. This is a non-vented Opti So there's no vacuum connected to this guy to suck out moisture that you don't want in here and that can ruin the electronics. All right. What do we got here? This is the cap and this is the rotor. You can imagine the amount of work that goes in just if you wanted to do normal maintenance of a cap and rotor which you pretty much wouldn't do, you just replace the Opti if you're doing this. This is in really rough shape and these are the ones at the bottom Up top. Looks a little cleaner and more normal, but this cap is overall in rough shape. And here's our rotor as well. Just just not good. Could be original. Curious. look at this. Oh wow. Look at this. Bam. Look at this buildup. This buildup just flakes right off. Look at that. Oh yeah. I wonder this thing ran so bad. This is horrible. All right, we'll get this rotor off of here. It looks like there's a little piece of rubber in between there inside. The update: Okay, that's just a plastic cap. Nothing exciting. Bam Done. Wow. You can see the rust build up already and that's just all moisture building up. So this is the little disc that rotates and it has 360 little slots that represents 360 degrees of crankshaft rotation. And this is the part that creates a little laser that shines through these little slots and because they get interrupted, it's able to send this information back to the PCM and it's then interpreted as the rotation of the crankshaft so it knows exactly where it's at. This is actually a pretty precise system. This little part is made by Mitsubishi if you buy one of the really cheap Opti Sparks for like 100 bucks off Amazon It's not going to have one of these and these are the parts here that can definitely cause issues, especially if rust and whatnot builds up inside. So never pressure wash one of these engines. If water gets in here and creates any rust, it's going to throw off the signal and then you're in trouble. All right, let's continue to dissect foreign. Okay, get this part out. Okay, then we'll take this disc out here. Okay, and then I'm sure there's a more proper order of removing all of this, but we're not going to be reusing the safety anyway. You can see a little rust here on the disc. All right. So then we can just remove this disc here again. There's no real practical reason for you to be disassembling this. Just put a new one in if you're at this point. Okay, and then we just remove this guy here. That's all there is to it for the Opti Spark laser. Little cool disc with 360 little slots Sends info through here to the PCM that's your happy. Spark All right. So let's remove our front cover and investigate. So we have a block of wood holding one of our ears and that way we can turn this. I Don't know what the torque spec is, but this is not very tight at all. That's it. I Don't think I've ever used a ratchet this size on a crank bolt, but that's where we're at here in LT1 world. it's just that easy. It's as easy like like it's like butter. Like butter. it's from. Uh, that's from. Saturday Night Live All right, All right. So here is our setup to remove this guy here. and normally we would be tightening this, but there is absolutely no room in here so we kind of have to just go around and tighten up each one of these. There's three of them and it should pull it out from right here. This bottom one is a total pain. There we go. That was a good noise. Broke Free Excellent. That means this is going to start sliding out soon. You can see right in there we see a clean spot. which means this thing is slowly but surely moving out. All right. So after a lot of back and forth, we have this guy loose so we just have to remove the puller now and we'll be good to go tools coming out. Okay, I'll loosen up our center bolt here we go. So we had to get a longer bolt which will help us with the installation as well. All right, before we take that front timing cover off, we're going to drain our oil and it comes with one of these little valves so we don't have to mess around with a drain plug. It's kind of nice look at that. So we haven't changed the oil yet, but the last time it was changed was only a few hundred miles ago. But about six and a half years ago we checked the oil and the level was great. Oh yeah, this only has a few hundred miles on. It smells good though, doesn't smell Fury which is good considering how bad it ran. This will drain faster now. Oh aha, the oil. Almost got my tool. Now this just drains slow. It's very cold though. There we go. All right front timing cover coming off. you're like an archaeologist trying to dig and find all these bullets beneath all this crust. I Mean you can't even tell where they are? You're just kind of guessing. Okay, there we go. Come on baby, There we go. Oh look at how nasty this is. This is gonna feel so good to clean. get a new gasket in here and we get to check out our timing chain and our gear. All sorts of cool stuff. All right guys, we're gonna clean up this front cover. and I switched over to diesel fuel and my parts cleaner. I Wasn't a huge fan of the water-based cleaner and I know you're really not supposed to use diesel in some of these, but it might reduce the life of the pump. but I really don't care. I'd rather spend way less time cleaning parts and get like a year out of the pump, but not two years out of the cheap pump. Diesel works So good though, just melts it all away. We go out looking so good diesel fuel for the win! I Would have been here forever with drills and all sorts of brushes if I was using a water-based cleaner. This is awesome. all right. So with the front timing cover off, we've ordered up all the appropriate seals that should be here by tomorrow. but I just wanted to show you some of the stuff that we had already ordered in preparation for this job. so we will be removing the intake manifold to reseal that because I think some oil was leaking down from there. And then. the main star of the show here is this: This is a very high quality. Opti Spark It's a complete unit from Petrus Enterprise They are the experts in everything optispark. I'll leave them linked down below So this is a custom vented unit that they put together for the earlier Opti Sparks that are not vented. So this way we don't have to swap out the front timing cover the camshaft. You'd have to swap those out in order to go to a 95, 96, 97 vented unit. So they've made the earlier Opti-spark vented. This is all their custom work right here. So this way it's going to be connected to vacuum to your engine. It's going to suck out any contaminants so you don't end up in a situation like this where everything is Rusted and they only use the best of the best parts as well and my favorite part. These are all tested with a date coat and everything. Because this is a big job you don't want to buy an 80 hundred dollar unit off of Amazon Throw it on there and it doesn't work and you have to take everything back apart. This is the way to go. spend a little bit more money, get the quality part and be done with it. So they give you full instructions as well and I spoke with the owner of Petrus Enterprise this guy Chris super nice, very knowledgeable Xgm Tech and he gave me even more Opti-spark diagnosis tips which I have linked for you guys, it's just a document Down Below in the description box so you guys can kind of go through that step by step and he's diagnosed probably 10 000 of these things. so they are spot on diagnosis instructions I think you guys will really appreciate So a big shout out to Petrus Enterprise which has figured out all of our opti-spark woes and kind of bundled it into a nice knee eat package. So this is the vacuum harness that we need. It has check valves and a filter. Everything is all done for you and later on we'll be connecting that to the intake. And of course we have a brand new water pump. any thermostat as well, coolant, all that normal stuff. I Temporarily threw this cover back on because we need to clean up all of this. Grime It's all over the place. it's very, very thick as you can see. So I'm going to spray some of the Amsoil heavy duty Degreaser in here. All right Then we're just going to use our pressure washer. All right. The Degreaser plus pressure washer cuts through like butter. Like butter. All right. So we went from this nasty Caked Up subframe all the way to this beautiful Factory Fresh 1993 brand new subframe. Look at the rack looking good. Then we went from this all the way to this and from this all the way to this so looking good. We got a lot of this gunk out of the way and I think this Gunk came from a combination of a leaking front timing cover and possibly a leaking intake and valve cover gasket. So let's let's rip this stuff off too. We're gonna reseal almost everything all right. So we're gonna remove the entire intake manifold right now. So there goes the throttle cable. I've disconnected all of the injector harnesses and we got some fuel lines and I'm pretty sure we can take off the entire intake with the fuel lines and the injectors and everything installed so we don't have to mess with that again. So we already resealed all that stuff. There's our booster line. Get this guy off here. some PCV action. Now we got to rip this alternator bracket off that was really loose. Oh look at this. look at how loose that is. Just take it out with my hand. That's weird. That was too loose. That was good. Okay, all right, let's get this guy off. Oh, she's glued on. that's for sure. There we go. Now the big question here is was anything done to this intake manifold? A lot of you guys had commented that we had Lt4 heads. So you need the Lt4 intake to run those heads unless these are modified, so we'll learn that right now. It comes with metal gaskets. That's pretty nice. What is this though? A piece of something in here. It's a clip of some sort. huh? They really kicked this on so the intake's definitely been off at some point. Yeah, I Don't know I don't know I Think this is an untouched LT1 intake. So I was reading online. They have to actually Weld and add more material to the LT1 intake to make it work with those heads and then it has to be machined down. Seems like a lot of work. Probably just be a lot easier just to run the Lt4 intake so we may not have Lt4 heads. Let's take a look at these numbers on the heads one more time. I Didn't even bother to run them myself because multiple people had commented and said those are definitely Lt4 heads. I'm like, all right. cool. We got Lc4 heads so there's our number. Let me run it now. Look at this guys. This is the exact part number. we have in those heads. 1996 Lt4. All right. So these are definitely Lt4 heads that says Lt4 right there. the part number we checked like eight other sites. these are Lt4 heads and this is definitely a stock LT1 intake manifold uh, 1992 on there and everything and nothing's been added. So we we figured out that the main difference here is that they added material to the top of the intake. Port So one of the differences with the Lt4 intake aside from it being painted red, was that there was more metal material added right here so that it would seal against this area of the cylinder head. Here you can see this is a very thin ceiling area because it's running the Lt4 heads with the LT1 intake now. I Did read online that you absolutely have to have that intake manifold modified or run the Lt4 intake with the Lt4 heads, but some guys said that with a really good gasket like this one, it's pretty thick that it will seal up just fine and we weren't having any intake seal leaks. So originally I was just going to go with the regular Fel-Pro gasket kit with the regular graphite intake manifold gaskets. But now that we've discovered all of this, I'm just going to order a brand new set of these bad boys. these really thick steel gaskets. That way we don't have any issues. All right, So we got to start cleaning this stuff off. Very satisfying to say the least. especially when they they lay it on thick. Look at this. Oh, don't get any of my motor. Oh how's that coming off? It's coming off like butter. More butter. Since we're resealing everything, we're going to do this oil pan as well. So I popped the little Shield off. We can see a blue torque converter, so might have an aftermarket torque converter in there and we just had to pop the starter down and we just have a bunch of bolts around the perimeter. All right. We had a couple of studs hiding. this should be the last one. Now is that us hiding out of the car? A couple of studs. that is. a couple of studs just hanging out. Good one Peter good one another Shield hiding studs on both sides. Oh, there are a lot a lot of stuff holding the soil painted. Okay, now for real, this is the last Hardware that needs to be removed. Just just kidding, there's another one right here. Okay, all right, a little pan coming down. Nothing on the C4 can be easy like. this stud right here that doesn't even need to be that long is preventing me from taking this out. That's it. And then we reseal that too. Whatever. that's fine. Alex Is that some? Rust No, it's not. Well, we're in there. No, we are not doing another frame off restoration. The lightning was enough. This car is fine, all right, So hopefully this is easy. Yes, it is super easy. We definitely should have done this anyway. Yeah, there's a seal that goes in here, which is right here. So yeah, I'm happy we're doing this super easy. Why not knock out another potential leak all right now? This oil pan should just come right out with no additional work whatsoever. Just come down. C4 Pan out of here. We got it. It is closed. Oh I Got it. finally. Oh, here's our oil pan. I Don't know what was hung up on there. All right when we get to look inside of the oil pan here, yeah, say I think there was some condensation in this oil pan. There's a little bit of water in there. Definitely glad we're doing this just getting everything out of here. But the good thing is we don't see any glitter or any chunks of engine in here, which is always a good thing. but after sitting around for the last six years or so, it definitely built up a little bit of condensation in here. That is a rock. We found a rock in the oil pan I Thought it was metal at first, but that's definitely a rock. Okay, is that a good thing or a bad thing? It's definitely a good thing if that was a chunk of metal. I'd be worried I mean a rock could have just when they had the intake off when anything was taken apart of the motor. before that something a rock could have gotten it. We'll take a rock over over some metal sharks. Yes, yes. I will take rocks at the bottom of the oil pan all day. All right. So we'll get this oil pan gasket out of here. and we found in the LT1 that it is a one piece. so on the older Chevy small blocks I Remember this part here. you could replace separately in the front and you could still probably do that in this. you just have to put some RTV at the corners. but since we have it all apart anyway, we'll just replace it with a nice one piece and call it a day. All right there we go. All right guys. Oil pan is all cleaned up, ready to go back on. and don't be like Alex and break your oil level sensor. You have to remove this before you drop the pan. I Was just too excited. Luckily 12 bucks is saving the day. We're going to replace this guy and we're replacing a few other things. That's all it would have taken. All right. Don't forget to remove the paper gasket for your oil filter housing and it's going to break apart. Probably like that, All right. So we have our nice and blue oil pan gasket all ready to go. This is a one piece design from Felpro. a very nice piece. But first we want to get this front timing cover on and we have three seals to replace. All you need is a little pry bar or a screwdriver. They have a seal puller if you'd like, but some of these just come right out. No biggie. I say that now. this one's stuck. All right. Here's our brand new crankshaft seal. Just want to get it in here nice and even. And I really like these seal installers as well. Okay, so just make sure this thing is going down even All right. Next we have this little guy here and I don't have a seal installer this small but it just popped out so easy. I think we can just push this in? same with this guy but I don't think we'll be able to push him in? No! Oh, I Do have a little baby driver that'll work for this cool foreign. With new seals comes a new gasket. it's just getting held on with a little bit of RTV makes it easier to install and then we'll go ahead and slide our timing cover into place like that and then we'll just start all of our bolts by hand. All right. So we're just torquing this front cover. We don't want any leaks click click. and if you guys haven't tried out Sonic Tools I Highly recommend them! I have LSC engraved into every single one of my Sonic tools. I'll leave you guys a link and a coupon code for 10 off their entire catalog down below. All right! So it's time to put the balancer on and I Just want to show you that these holes will only line up one way so you don't have to worry about marking anything. Here you can see right now it's off on that one and there you go. That's how it goes. So because this is pressed onto the crank, we need to draw it back into the crank. So we have a longer bolt that we bought and we're just going to put a little bit of high temperature grease on this washer so it spins really nice and easy. There we go. This is essentially our installation tool. Now if you notice this Ridge right here, this has to face in the 12 o'clock position as long as cylinder one is at top dead center, which we already set, so we'll just kind of push it on as much as we can which isn't much. All right. So now we're just going to draw this guy in and it's kind of hard to tell on camera, but it is moving ever so slightly. All right. So I've removed our installation bolt. Now we can go ahead with the factory Bolt and just a little bit of the blue Loctite All right now, we just continue to tighten. You get the idea. this thing is going to suck itself right into place and you can kind of see where it stops, but you won't be able to tighten it anymore once it's seated all the way. Okay, so once you get it on, it'll spin the motor a little bit. So I Just had to spin it around so we can get our block of wood in there. Foreign. That's 75 foot-pounds that guy's on. We're about to install the oil pan, but it's kind of nice to see the bottom end of the engine. It is all stock, but the cam looks really good. It's hard to tell for you guys, but the cylinder walls look excellent. You can kind of see that mirror finish up there, so that's great all right. It's actually way easier to install the oil pan gasket first and Felpro gives you these little guys here. They call them snap UPS So we just put two of them in the front and then cut them to size so they hold up the oil pan gasket. the back has studs and check this out. Now without jacking up the engine or anything, this oil pan just fits right into place. Oh, this is nice and we don't run the risk of moving that seal around and then wondering if we're pinching it in the wrong spot. It literally just went right up with. with that noise. There's vacuum. All right. Before we tighten up the oil pan, we're just removing these little snap deals. Whatever they call them. what are they called Peter Snap-ups They're called snap-ups They're like Pull-Ups for big kids. I Don't know what it is, but it really helped out a lot. Do you wear pull-ups? Yes. All right. So I Just put one bolt in on each side just to hold it up so we can get those little snap deals out. But you have to remember to put your rail back in and there's one of these on each side. All right. Oil pan is on and torqued and now we can install our new level sensor which is made of plastic so be delicate with this guy. Comes with a new o-ring that we lubricated as well. Requires barely any click clicks click click click click. That's good. Next up, we have our oil filter housing. so a new seal here and a new gasket here. All right. All right, it's finally time to install our new Opti spark. But I will not be installing new spark plug wires because I Just spoke with the previous long time owner of the C4 on the phone and I recorded the entire conversation. So I just learned a ton about this car. It is an insane story and get this about like 12 13 years ago me and this guy met. It's like a really small world. He had his motorcycle painted ruby red just like this car. It's insane but it's too much. It's like a 13 minute conversation. I'm not going to put in this video because it's probably already four hours long. but in Corvette part 5, the next video after this I'll include the phone call or a link to the video of the phonecloud I Don't know what, but very, very exciting. The guy told me he just did the spark plugs and the wires like maybe 3000 miles ago so we're not gonna bother replacing those. Um, but we need to get our new Opti spark in here which he did say he owned the car for 20 years. he never replaced it. so I think it was the original but anyway. uh, this does come with a brand new spline drive and it only goes on one way. You can can't mess this up, but it does have to be in the proper orientation which I've already played with for 10 minutes off camera. It's literally just a matter of turning this until you get it in just right and then we just have to finagle this guy in. and does anyone else out there use the word finagle? but I don't know where that came from I don't know if it's a Chicago thing, but I've been using Finagle a lot to always be finagling something. All right we have a Nagle Avenue we do have a Nagel street is it was there a guy named Finn that lived on Nagel I Don't have no idea. Okay, that's pretty much it. It just splines right in there now. I Gotta get the bolts on All right. Three of these front cover bolts are longer than the others because they are the ones that hold in the opti-spark All right. We've just plugged in all of our spark plug wires and now it's time for the balancer. It looks impossible when you first start this job to get out, but it's not. You can do it and we'll put a little bit of Loctite on these two all right balancers out. Next up was replacing the water pump, but our new one has a 90 degree fitting and this is the fitting on the old one. So I think this is a pro charger thing. Basically the belt will hit this so we got to take it out All right. So we're just heating this up a little bit and it should come right out. Okay, crazy, That's all it takes. and we heated it up for about 30 seconds before that. but still. just a press fit. All right. So we have to tap this out now. A little bit of penetrating oil. Gentle, pure, gentle. Oh, it's nice aluminum so it's cutting. So nice. The other one was crooked so whoever did this to that one kind of did it at an angle. They did not have that. Japanese Superstition That's right, All right. So we've tapped this out and cleaned it, cleaned up the fitting as well, and now it's time for a little bit of thread sealant. Or a lot of them. Or a lot of it. Yeah, that's the new tube. It came out kind of quicker than expected, but it won't leak and then a little bit for our coolant, temperature sensor fitting, and sensor are in. We're ready to go back together with the water pump and this guy just kind of stinks to do. Not gonna lie, there's no room. lots of finagling. Now we have these hoses to contend with too. You need to Route those properly. and then don't forget your little coupling drive shaft dealie there for the water pump. And there are dowel pins on here which are nice, all right. So I noticed that when I was removing the water pump bolts, that coolant would come out and so we definitely want to get some thread sealer on these as well. and then we'll just reinstall our bolts and our water pump will be done all right. So next up, I'm replacing the gaskets on the valve covers. So here's our new gasket and very important is that you replace these grommets that the bolts go through. These are the old ones and they're very hard. They're supposed to be soft because they're made of rubber and I think we were getting a little bit of an oil leak from this. Look at all this ah foreign. this will all be attached to something. Oh let's begin, it's about a spaghetti. Yeah, pasta. Well of course to do this valve cover, we have to remove the alternator. So the project continues on on our 457 000.

I Started as a young man with a gleam of Hope In My Eyes Peter has noticeably aged throughout this video. you know, the gray hairs. So unfortunately this little ear was already broken off. but it's okay. still holding it, just trying to be very gentle. There we go there, we go all right and look at this weird stuff that's going on inside of the valve cover. I Would think it was from the aftermarket rockers, but it's built up material. Very strange. All right. With our valve cover installed, we have the alternator back on our belt tensioner right down there and now we're just sliding the belt back on. Next up, we have a brand Spanky new thermostat and we'll put a little bit of thread sealer on these little bolts too. All right guys, We're about to install the intake manifold, but before we do that, we just have to build a quick little wall of our TV and we'll build up another little wall of our TV in the front here too. All right guys, Intake manifold is going on. Yes, Yes! Go back to your home, Your Lt4 home where you don't make a lot of sense. According to the internet, you shouldn't even be physically possible because we're clicking this and take manifold on. This thing is just about ready to fire up. I'm excited. I'm nervous. Mostly excited. I Wanna see what kind of power this guy has? It's got to be fast, right? All right, You know, nothing but the best for the C4 Corvette We got Amsoil synthetic and a filter going in. All right, all right guys. Peter and I wrapped up pretty much everything else. Just a bunch of connectors and lines that you've seen before. Uh, we still got to do that little air intake tube thingy right there. but I'm too excited we got to fire this up. We should know right away if it's gonna run better because of how bad it ran before and in case this video is 14 hours long and you've forgotten how bad it ran. Here is a short clip. Come on baby. Oh, this is horrible. This is running so bad. What happened, What happened LT1 And with that Peter Are you ready? Yes. I'm ready too. Fired up, Fired up. Please, please please. All right here we go. Prime it, prime it, Give it another. Prime All right here we go. Let's go. let's go. Yeah, we still got the exhaust belief that's for another video. Look at that. no black smoke out of the tail lights. It's basically a hybrid. It's alive. Look at that breathing in Peter is so good. All right. we gotta go for a ride over. First we gotta fix this. This does not work. That's our secondary fuel pump now. it never works. and if we're gonna go beat on this thing, we need that to work. All right. we're just gonna Power Probe this pump and just see if this thing is actually dead or alive. Oh it's a lot and it sounds really good. Cool! So I think what happens here is this is coming off of the original pump in the tank and it's feeding this larger pump which is in line and then that sends it over to the engine. So this pump isn't boost activated, it just powered up anytime the car is running. Let's check the fuse and the fuse is good, huh? So I pulled the relay out. We should have 12 volts here that's coming right off the alternator. This is our signal probably coming off of the factory harness so this should work. Yep, cool. This is a Telltale sign of a bad relay. You can see right there. Water got in here and it's probably a little burnt up. Luckily I have a spare because whenever you Webby you just use a Toyota part. All right. So pop this guy in there. and then once we put a license plate here I think it'll be pretty well protected. Did it work? It's a rabbit? Yeah, we're working. Oh no, we need a wide band. Oh let's just install the wideband guys. I'm not going to show you anything. it's power and ground to the wideband here. I'll show you once we're done. If you guys have seen the other videos, you know that we had this gauge that was literally connected to nothing in this pod and now we have this our nice little wideband O2 gauge and luckily the Corvette already had a bung welded in. There was a plug in this so we pulled it out, put our wide band in and we're good to go. So we've ran this car for probably 30 minutes. We have absolutely no leaks, everything is sealed up. Here is our temporary fresh air intake for the vented opti-spark Here's where we connected the vacuum for the Opti-spark Nice and clean. I Filled it up with coolant. We've connected everything. We have a spaghetti bowl of wiring that we'll fix in the next video. Uh, but everything is there for it to run and drive. and drive. Some tires, tread tires. Let's do this. Foreign, yeah, air fuel is looking good. Pretty solid right there. 14.7 to 1. Oh yeah, this is nice. So far so good on the tune. Uh, let's see here. Wide open. Whoa. Okay, Eleven Five Eleven Six I like it so that's great. That's what I Wanted to see somewhere in the 11s, you know, maybe low 12? Something like that. We're only running like five-ish PSI But wow, this is so cool. We get to go wide open throttle. In the last video, I was just going like half throttle and I still kind of think it was running bad. now that I look back at that footage, it was kind of missing a little bit. Um, you know. and then it started missing a lot of it. So yeah, we're good. Let's fix it. Transmission shifts so good. I Thought it'd be a little higher than that, but then again, this is an old a very old. P1 SE It's probably one of the first supercharger LT1 kits that were available. Oh man, it just breaks them loose. It's so cool. It's so retro like I know it's not the fastest car I own by any means, but it's quick and a C4 I've owned a bunch of these like three C4s or something and they're all kind of. they were 80s like TPI ones. They're pretty slow so this is cool. Oh man, guys, there's something done to the trans by the way, which you guys will find out in the next video because we spoke to the longtime owner of this car and there's there's some trans work done to it. We found out a lot more goodies and I can't wait to share that phone call with you guys! It's pretty cool. Short shifts? jeez, that is some C4 power right there. Foreign bucks plus fees. So like 4 000 bucks plus repairs. So like 40 thousand five thousand bucks short chips. It's weird I don't know what's going on with that. just trying to make it back to the shop now. Oh yes, no, there we go. What in the world? Well that was kind of short-lived guys. It ripped. it really felt good. It was clearly fixed I mean it is clearly fixed I mean whatever happened now it's something else. It's new because before I mean it was just running. horribly bad, horribly bad. and uh, and now it runs. It runs fine, like it idle is fine. Um, our vacuum and our AFR is still perfect when it's just running. Oh but I hit the gas and it just breaks up and clogs up and just it's it's not good. clogged cat? maybe? I don't know. Oh there it is there. Oh look at that terrible oh man. yeah. I can't even accelerate right now. All right, that's that boosted C4 life for you. So stay tuned for the next video where we will, uh, hopefully fix this. So if you enjoyed this one, if you stuck around for the whole thing, especially, give this video a big thumbs up. I'm literally barely making it into my shop right now. Uh, dying? Yeah. Oh, we gotta go up a hill. share the video with your friends. subscribe if you haven't already. Um, okay, most importantly, have a great day guys. this is gonna Dive Right In My Outro I'm all the way down right now. Yeah, we can't even make it up the little ramp to the shop. Do you want me to get out of push? Yeah. Stay tuned guys for the next video to see if we made it up this ramp and we're going backwards. All right. have a good one guys. See you later Foreign.