Just for starters I have a disabled knock sensor and the car was performing very well the first day it was gone.

Well NOW the car is detonating for sure. Mostly when I'm in boost. I noticed my oil pressure is alot lower than usual too.(could be sending unit still original one).

Heres my question. If low oil pressure is causing detonation, will the knock sensor take care of it?

I'm scared I'll just be hiding the "low oil pressure" problem when I put the knock sensor back in. Any thoughts or suggestions? What would cause the low oil pressure?

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91 Formula 1LE 1 of 46
305 TPI 5speed
1LE/G92/WS6

Paxton SN92 supercharger, Ford SVO 24#injectors, Crane AFPR,SLP airfoil, ported/polished plenum, March alt. pulley,Crane Gold 1.6rrs,MSD coil,MSD6AL (5400rpm limit),Holley 9mm wires,Ac delco R43ts plugs,custom chip,Bosch O2sensor,SLP 1 5/8" headers,SLP catback,shortened shifter,3:73s w/Auburn posi,180* t-stat,JET 195* fan switch, Macewen white face gauges, Autometer gauges, Zoom hi-performance clutch.

 

i think you'll get more help on the power adder board so i'll move this there.

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ICON Motorsports

1st & 3rd
MM Black Diamond 538 F&AM

 

You got detonation and low oil PSI, huummmm. Me thinks maybe you got low oil PSI because the rods are starting to knock or one is spun and your thinking it's detonation. Sorry man I know nobody wants to hear stuff like this. If the rod was starting to knock and you unplugged the knock sensor it would stop retarding the timing and run much better than when hooked up. Bearing noise will make the knock sensor go into overdrive, just like when detonation is heard, it's the same sound to the sensor.
The whole lower than normal oil PSI got my wheels spinning, so LMK what you find out.

 

Well it turns out it was detonation. I should of realized before. I was noticing detonation above 3200 RPMS in 3rd and 4th gear only. Thats where the load is the most. Put the sensor back on and no more detonation. max retard is 10 degrees.

 

Whew! Good to hear, I thought you spun a bearing. What was the cause of the low oil pressure? Also I have noticed knock sensors can get over sensitive with age, then they start thinking every little noise is a knock.

 

Agree with you on the knock sensor comment.

Don't know whats causing low psi in oil. Possibly the sender?

 

Change the sender and see what happens.

 

I put a new one in there ($39.99!) and getting slightly less knock retard as before (10 degrees vs previous 16)

 

I was referring to the oil pressure sender. Also, can you clarify if this is false knock?

 

Maybe you went into detonation b/c of no knock sensor, and the detonation smashed the heck out of your bearings causing a loss of oil pressure. Pistons are not the only thing that detonation will destroy in a very very short time.

 

knock sensors are just a safty device to keep the engine from self distructing when poorly timed. when the knock sensor goes off the ESC unit tells the ECU to retard timing by X number of degrees. this condition lasts for 20 second and then timing reverts back to normal. If the timing is off it will just knock again and go back into retarded timing. this is a good band-aid but it's like limp-home mode, you don't want to drive that way, you want to get it fixed. I learned this from a Chiltons manual. Sometime when you have nothing to do just sit down and read through the whole thing, even if you don't have a particular problem, read through till you can identify and know the function of every single component and how that part does its job. I learned a lot that way.