Hello all. I was wondering what causes detonation and what I can do to stop it. My car's been doing it for a while and it's driving me nuts.

1988 Camaro with 305c.i. TBI

 

if i were to guess on your 305 tbi, i would have to say carbon buildups on piston/valve/chamber. creating hotspots and pre-detinating..

I would run some Techron FI cleaner through it...

 

Do fuel additives actually help? I've always been skeptical of all that stuff that promises to fix all your problems with one little bottle.

 

I am on my my fourth 'one tank treatment' bottle of Redline Si-2 complete fuel system cleaner. If anyone makes a functional snake oil - it'd be Redline. Seafoam is also good stuff. Look into either of those products.

Now... you could just need a good tune up - so make the fuel system treatment part of the tune up.

I would take a look at the spark plugs. Tell us what they look like.

 

check your timing to see that it isnt over advanced. what octane gas are you using? engine temp ok? did you check trouble codes?

 

Ive heard timing and fuel grade can cause pinging. (dont even know what pinging is.) But Id check a few things. It shouldnt be anything too bad.

Nate

 

"pinging" is pre-ignition or detonation. in other words, the compressed air fuel mixture in the cylinders is igniting before its supposed to. this can be influenced by many different factors: compression ratio too high, timing too far advanced, improper heat dissipation resulting in "hot spots" in the cylinder heads, inadequate octane gasoline, intake air temp too high, mixture running too lean, inefficient mixing of air/fuel, and others. in low to moderate performance engines is causes increased engine wear and bad gas mileage. in high performance engines it can cause catastrophic engine failure such as grenading your pistons. ive seen the aftermath of this and its not pretty.

 

too much timing, not enough octane, or deposts in the hole(s) doing the pinging. you can change timing, increase octane, or mist water in the engine to clean it.

 

Thanks for all the suggestions. OK first off, I've been using 89 octane fuel (10% ethanol blend) and if I remember correctly the timing is at 4* btdc. I shouldn't have to run higher octane fuel on a mostly stock engine, should I? I've been meaning to check the spark plugs but it's so damn cold out. A tune up is scheduled in the spring before I start driving it regularly. For now I guess I'll try throwing in a bottle of fuel system cleaner. I saw a few brands mentioned. Is there much difference between them?