Is the pinging/pinking occurring at all ranges of throttle position?

My 88 started detonating out of the blue and I thought it was because I filled up with regular unleaded. That turned out to be a coincidence though.

What happened was my knock sensor connector was dried up brittle plastic, it fell apart and fell off.

I ordered a new connector with a length of wire and zip-tied my original in place until the replacement arrived and was installed.

No more detonation.

Sometimes it is just that simple. Do a quick check and make sure you don't have a wire hanging down on the passenger side of the engine back by the starter.

Jared

 

Thanks for that link - I've been looking for links like that, but not found this one. It's a wired camera, so this thread perfect for me. It alerady has an aftermarket single DIN, so Bose stuff all gone already.

 

Thanks Jared - that's an easy check. I'll have a look at see if it's connected, but very keen to replace regardless.

 

Thanks Chris - the tyres are new (https://www.drivelife.co.nz/2019/09/...rt-5-days-1-3/).
Sounds like Bucanneer is able to help, so that's fantastic news.
I've shipped cars back to NZ with full tanks of fuel before, I don't think that's an issue now?

 

Thanks heaps Buccaneer - do you mean Wednesday to Friday or Wednesday and Friday? Thursday would be perfect for me, but I'll happily work around your availablity.
My cousin lives in Litchfield Park, but I can travel of course, no sweat.
If I buy a new knock sensor and how ever many O2 sensors I need, do you have the right tool to replace them?
I've ordered a timing light and hopefully it will arrive Thursday, not sure if you have one or not...
Cheers and thanks again - keen to get the car sorted for the rest of our trip. I know it's only 250hp, but it does feel like it's not running with that much.

 

I was informed today by the war department (wife) that I'm not available this Thursday like I thought I was (lol), but tomorrow and Friday would be ok. Litchfield is all the way on the west side by Luke AFB. I'm dew east...You are easily 55 miles from me across town, maybe more. I will PM you my number and we can talk and go from there.

 

Hello again Fred,

I was shipping the cars to Germany and to the U.S. Military was paying for it. Maybe just another dumb Baltimore way to make money. When I picked up a brand new Volvo there right off the ship it didn't have enough gasoline to make it to the front gate. I was glad as I had brought a five gallon can full just in case.

The replacement of the oxygen sensors is a smart move, it will probably make the mileage and the car a bit perkier with new sensors.

By the time the B&G 44K gets to work you should notice the difference. It takes a good half tank to really get it to work on cleaning the fuel system. If you have a hard time finding it you can order it from Amazon and make Jeff Bezos even richer.

One thing that makes cars feel slower and performance really drops is when the catalytic converter gets partially plugged. When the oxygen sensors are being changed start the engine and verify that there is no pressure trying to escape the O2 bung! If there is a lot of pressure escaping then you might have an issue with your catalytic converter. The newer design Hi flow catalytic converters flow so much better that the previous unit even when it was working well.

How long does it take to ship a car to NZ? If you ship with gas in it hope that you put some fuel stabilizer in it.

Those cute little reverse cameras are really handy. I bought one at a NAPA store for $29.95 and it came with a display and was wireless. It was the cheapest I had ever seen them. What stereo did you finally choose to use? I put a single din in my 1988 and want to get a touch screen.

AAA is a ripoff, there are other options. My car stalled in a small lake on the road that formed in a bad rainstorm. I called AAA and they told me for a tow it would be up to four hours, I explained that my car was sinking. Not wanting to ruin the car, a toothless Tow truck driver was sitting on the far side. He was a AAA approved repair vehicle and he still wanted $200 cash for the tow out of the puddle/lake. The water was right below the windows and rising, I told him I was broke and gave him $65 and got my car out before it was totaled.

I will never recommend triple A to anyone, especially not a guest in our country. I have road coverage on all my cars and RV's thru my "Good Sam" club membership and is available at camping/RV stores. It cost a lot less and covers all my drivers in any vehicle they are driving even if it isn't ours.

I am disappointed in California, virtually every state has either 45 or 90 day tags for moving the car state to state or out of the country. You should not have paid anything more than $25 for the permit. All that California inspection bologna was to liberate your dollars from your wallet. AAA should have known how to deal with your type of situation.

I am sorry they did that to you. California likes to think they "lead" the rest of the country. We are in real trouble if that was true!

It sounds like you are in control and under way! If you need anything please feel free.

Have a safe trip!
Chris

 

Quck update: I've put a new O2 sensor in, and had a very short test drive. So far no pinging, but the real test will be when it's loaded up. Thanks for all the tips, team.

 

Another update: So after Fred and his wife dropped in at my house and we worked on his C4 for a while, we didn't make a lot of progress, but found that the timing was off low by 2* and reset it. Fred ended up replacing his O2 and seemed to run a bit better. Today, I decided to drive out to where he was staying in west Phoenix area which was about 45-50 miles from me and took some assorted tools and the motor would be cooled off to work on. We ended up pulling all the plugs and #5 did not look as good as the rest with deposit build up on both the strap and electrode and the gap was opened up a bit. It appeared on all plugs really that maybe "cheap" regular gas was used in the car for a period of time. Replaced all the plugs with AC Delco OE plugs with proper gap. After that, took it for a drive and Fred was grinning that it now has some zip in her step and NO pinging. All-in-all it was a great time working on his car and Fred and his wife are great friendly people. We all went to dinner and had a great conversation. Maybe we will take a trip out to New Zealand...right after the Australia trip to see Greg and Ben in Brisbane. Cheers Mate!

 

That's fantastic news, sounds like it was in need of a tune-up.

It's awesome that there are still people willing to help others!!

Good deal.

Jared

 

Your a good man Tom. If you can help you should and you did.

 

Nice story!

 

Another update, the engine is the same. Still pinking under load.
Not sure what to do next.

 

Boo
maybe de-carbon the heads

 

Is it doing it a lot... or a little?

I do know that the timing marks clan slip on a balancer.... so that's something to consider. A bad ESC Module could also cause detonation. An engine that is too hot can detonate.

Wouldn't hurt to run a couple of bottles of Techron through the fuel system. (for carbon buildup)

A lot of things can contribute to detonation..... it's a hard one to narrow down without driving the car and experimenting a little.

Jared

 

HI Jared
I can make it do it whenever I want, by giving it some throttle under load, before it kicks down I can hear it.
The engine def isn't running too hot, it's sitting just below halfway, even on a long uphill climb.
Feeling like something is carboned up too, so will angle towards that for now, and see what happens.

Cheers
Fred

 

UGH!! Well, I did give it the college try! I thought the ride you took at WOT proved it was OK? You said it wasn't pinging before down shift or after? So I thought we made some progress and we were both happy...guess not and not happy about that at all. The motor is not heating up and you do have the that can with you, give it a try. This is a very odd issue for sure with all the indications being normal with this, other than it still pings again. Even if the balancer had slipped, the that wouldn't effect the timing prior to us doing anything...UNLESS it had slipped prior to us looking at it and someone else had set the timing if it had slipped on them? That would maybe explain why it was 2* off when we checked it. The only way to verify that would be to pop number 1 cylinder to TDC and see where the balancer timing mark is on the scale. If not at zero, there is an issue.

 

HI Tom
Yes, it did seem better, but under load with a load on, it's definitely there whenever I want it to be, using the gas pedal. I think if the harmonic balancer had slipped, the engine would either be too far advanced or retarded, retarded wouldn't bring pinging but advanced would, but I'm not sold on that. Starting to wonder about your suggestion re a vacuum leak, or a bad EGR?
I'll try that can of stuff out that I bought, see how that goes.

 

Cant help but wonder if your egr passages are plugged up. Made a difference on a TBI van I had...those tiny passages internally had to be cleaned out. Is it happening that last half sec as you floor it rihgt before it hits passing gear?

 

When you run out of ideas, it may be time to retard the ignition a bit. Are you sure the PO didn't install higher compression heads, so the ignition advance curve program is no longer correct?