I am asking this question because on a snap on comp. I am loosing 12-13 deg of timing at wide open throttle. Is that a really bad thing?? The car run's great, and the engine sound's as good as it did 3 year's ago. It is a 91 5.7. I can tell it is slowing me down, should I change the knock sensor itself? I did check the timing, and it is dead on 6 deg.

 

Ouch

I'd say you need to take care of THAT much retard...

My car for example never knocks except a couple counts at crank/startup, after that i can WOT uphill WOT downhill, decell, whatever I want to do, with 1 person in the car or 5, hot or cold, never any knock counts..

I burned a chip last night to push the limits, when i got 1° of knock retard in one spot, I moved back 2° to keep me on the safe side. I did all this using 90 octane when I normally run on 92 so i have a security buffer


Different people are comfortable with different levels of knock but I'd say you're pretty heavy.


Also I'd say your knock sensor is working, why change it? Try to put some race fuel or higher octane in it and see if that fixes the problem or if its false knock maybe

 

How do you know when youre getting knock counts? Ive been hearing people say that for a while?

 

You need to have some type of scanner plugged into your ALDL, either a commercial unit or a DIY one with a laptop.

I get pretty bad knock running 90-91 octance with the ARAP timing curve, but with 94 octane it all but disappears!

 

I was using 92 octane, I really have a feeling it is false knock. I get 0 knock at idle, and I loose about 2-deg at 1/2 throttle?? Once I punch it, 13-deg!! Should I back off the timing and see what happen's?? I can't even see that fixing 13-deg of knock retard, that's why I did not bother touching the timing yet.