Can my 1997 4.6L still run if the knock sensor is not working or unplugged

 

Yes, but you will get a CEL and it won't run all that well.

 

Alright thank you very much.. I will figure something out

 

Never tried that one...Why would you?

 

Maybe a pack rat are the wire. Evil little bastards. They love it under the intake.

 

Hmmmm ... I can see a CEL being set, but why would it run like crap?

It's a piezo transducer, so producing voltage in response to a knock - it's going into a high-impedance input. Simply short the connector with a 10k resistor.

No voltage, no falsely detected knock, normal timing. If you leave the input open, due to it's high impedance it may generate spurious signals fooling the PCM into thinking there is knock and pulling timing.

Of course, you could just replace the dang thing with a good one

good luck

MGD