Injuneer

The optical wheel in my Opti appeared to be stainless, and had no rust on it. The rust comes from the bearing retainer assembly and the flat piece the wheel attaches to. Mine was "blinded" by rust packing into the LED and receptors, not by plugging the holes in the disc.

Robs97Z28

Delteq is working on it. They are working on a Magnetic pickup. It is running perfectly on a 92 z with the coil packs, but they are having trouble on the LT1. The Magnetic pickup doesn't work well with the stock ecm, high res problems.

simple

they'll figure something out....and when they build it, we will come

Tom Piper

The Opti-Spark high-res pulse provides 1 degree of crankshaft resolution, that is going to be difficult to achieve with a magnetic pickup.
For the Opti-Spark, were talking about light passing through slots; for a magnetic pickup, that kind of resolution from "teeth" on a wheel of that diameter is difficult. It will be difficult even on a wheel the diameter of the damper.

As much as we complain about the Opti-Spark, it is difficult to duplicate.
And, unless we change the ECM, it DEMANDS one degree of crankshaft resolution to function. So, any replacement that uses the stock ECM will have to reliably produce one degree of crankshaft resolution.

Tom Piper

LT4POWR

That's me....stage 2 or nothing.

Tekprodave

any update on this issue?

Honda Hunter

Intrested as well.

bringBackCamaro

when I emailed Delteq, they said something like it wasn't
going to out anytime soon, and they are not working on it seriously
anymore

Tom Piper

I heard from an extremely reliable source that the next stage is in testing and it will still use the Optical sensor, but it will have no high voltage section (no cap or rotor section) at all and a much improved bearing.
Looks like you will have to wait to eliminate the optical sensor.

I'm hoping for an optical unit not much bigger than the optical sensor that can be removed and replaced without taking the water pump off.
Picture carrying a spare unit and changing it in the parking lot -- kind of like a fuse.

Tom Piper

96SilverRam

Interesting, hopefully Delteq will decide to finish the 2nd part from so long ago....

thesoundandthefury

I wonder if the person you heard this from was talking about this?:

"Gen III Distributors
The Gen III is designed to work with the LTCC and Delteq Coil conversion systems offered for the LT1. This is a rotorless system with a billet aluminum cap. We plan to offer this as an upgrade from your current Dynaspark as well as purchased new. Check back often for updates.

*UPDATE – We are in the first stages of testing for the Gen III and will have it ready for public sale by mid June 2006.*"
http://www.dynaspark.net/gen3.htm

Injuneer

How long is it now...... 3 or 4 years since Delteq promised the "Stage II" was "coming soon"?

At a minimum, they owe everyone who bought the Delteq on the promise of a priority and discount on the future "no Opti" version an explanaton of why they got the shaft.

LT4POWR

I agree, I've been thinking for a long while that the promise of stage 2 was just a marketing/sales ploy...

thesoundandthefury

You know sometimes it amazes me how easily some people get away with playing both sides of the fence. I've seen certain individuals on this board repeatedly sing praises about how the Optispark is the most sophisticated and technologically advanced distributor GM has ever produced, and how a distributor that has the capacity to last 100,000+ miles without any maintenance was "unheard of." And yet, even when a company comes along that markets a product that eliminates the Optispark's weaknesses, essentially making a part that everyone was already raving about even better, even then do we have people who still find reason to blame said company for being the cause of some supposed Greek Tragedy despite however much good their product initially did for it's customers.

Well hey, while we're at it, we may as well blame Delteq for the Kennedy assassination. Hell, maybe we could even squeeze the Holocaust in there.

Did it ever occur to anybody that maybe the reason Delteq didn't follow through with the "Stage II" was because it would've just been an exercise in reinventing the wheel? (No pun intended.) If the optical section of the optispark was indeed such a good design, why replace it? "Stage I" solved the problem, end of story.

Tom Piper

I think Delteq intended to make a unit that eliminated the Opti-Spark completely.
But, this is no small undertaking.
There is one major problem with this design -- unless you are going to replace the ECM/PCM, it requires a low-res signal for both the fuel injection and the ignition, plus a high-res signal for refined ignition timing.
This would be difficult to duplicate with a magnetic pickup with the same amount of accuracy (1 crankshaft degree). A narrow light beam is much more accurate than a magnetic field.
My preference would be an optical low-res pulse cam driven (because it doesn't have to be that accurate) and an optical high-res pulse crankshaft driven to eliminate timing chain slop and increase its accuracy.

I have the Delteq and I am happy with it. But, the Delteq is not an extremely accurate device -- the ignition timing accuracy is still determined by the ECM/PCM EST (Electronic Spark Timing) signal the same way as it was done without the Delteq.
The Delteq simply determines which coil the EST signal will fire by opening a "window of opportunity" for each coil to fire -- the EST signal fires the selected coil. That "window of opportunity" the Delteq supplies does not have to be very accurate -- just wide enough to accommodate the EST signal without overlapping coils.

If the Optical section alone can be improved on to eliminate problems with rust and the bearing, since the Delteq replaces the high voltage section, it is probably a much better option to go with.

Tom Piper