There is a guy I work with that has a 92 Corvette and he tells me at least once a year he has to buy a new distributor cap ($256.00 a shot). I think he said the engine is an LT1 with the distributor in front of the engine. Anyway, it seems that if he drives the car in wet weather and hits a puddle of water the splash goes up in the engine compartment and hits the distributor and cracks the cap. Anybody have any ideas how to keep this kind of thing from happening short of not driving in wet weather ( for all those that will say..."Don't drive in wet weather"!. That's the obvious solution)?

He may be missing a lower engine cover, say from the bottm radiator to the front crossmember, or have one made.

I had a similar thing, mine was getting rocks stuck in the serpentine belt. I bolted an 8.5 X 11 inch sheet of alum to the bottm of the shroud covering up the harmonic balancer and this cured my problem.

I had a 93 and never had a problem with mine; it was definitely driven rain or shine. It is a common problem and somewhere around 94/95 they switched the Optispark with a unit that had better water protection. But I think at the same time they swapped the pin size off the cam so I'm not sure you can fit that unit on the earlier cars without swapping cam/timing gear, ?

See if there's a better cap or a way to seal the cap on his car. It sounds like he's swapping the entire unit at that price.

Jody

the 94 Caprice and 95 and newer Camaros got the improved optispark setup- you can put it on an older LT1, but you either need a longer dowel pin in the cam, or maybe you can pull the existing one out a bit to make it work. i think GMPP also lists a different timing setup for it, as well.

they switched the f-bods in '95, all the b-bods had the vented opti

liker novaD said, the problem lies in the distributor drive (dowel pin) and timing cover are different from non-vented to vented, as well as the electrical connection

I'd agree that he needs a splash guard of some sort

I've never heard of the cap cracking, the most common problem is moisture leading to carbon tracking

Thanks for the info. A splash shield seems to be the way to go. graemlins/beers.gif

There is a problem getting water in that area on LT1 engines. Happens alot on F&Y bodies both.

I'd say once a year is a bit extreme though. Just about every case I've read in forums involves spraying alot of water directly on it with a hose or pressure washer, not just driving :confused: