I was racing a friend last night whose L is pretty equally matched with mine, but was pulling on him. When we stopped at the next light he had said that it was pinging like mad. Kind of wierd since it has never done that before, and the air was pretty cool last night. We tried to figure out why all of a sudden it was pinging when we realized that he had the tuner burn his Schip for 94 octane gas (You can get that regularly in NJ). Earlier that day he had put 93 in it. I know one octane point doesn't sound like much but it could have made a difference. Thinking of the mustang days, advancing the timing a couple of degrees you would really feel a difference and backing off even one degree on timing would stop pinging.

Anyway, it got me to thinking (I smelled wood burning). I had another friend from back in the day that had put a knock sensor with a bar code display on his '87 Grand National. When set up correctly, you could see pinging on the display long before you could hear it. This is what you want because if you are hearing it then it may be too late.

I know MSD Ignition makes such an animal. Has anybody tried this? Sounds like a good idea to me.

 

According to Ford or Sal or somebody.........the L engs. are too 'noisy' for a knock sensor to work.

Dan

 

That's what I had thought, but maybe the sensitivity could be adjusted on the sensor though. I didn't want to spend the $400 or so to find out though.

If there is no factory knock sensor installed then I guess that is why guys are blowing motors

 

(1) Nearly any engine can be fitted with a knock sensor. The engine is monitored using in-cylinder pressure transducers and the outout from the knock sensor is plotted. The accoustic signature of knock is then determined.

(2) How many guys are blowing STOCK motors?

 

Good Point, probably not many

 

I though our trucks had a knock sensor. Just wasn't used on the lightnings though.
https://www.f150online.com/forums/sh...threadid=81302
Jes

 

The knock sensor is located just beneath the charger i beleive. I'm working w/ a couple of people over the winter to try and get one to work. I'm sure the stocker would work if the blower wasn't mounted on the engine.

 

Maybe another location for the sensor would alleviate some of the "Noise" that would lead to false readings. I don't want to use it to retard the timing or anything, I just want to gather data.

 

The problem i think is going to be overcoming the vibration of the blower on the block. We're going to ook into seeing how detonation is at WOT (since that is where it will hurt you) Were going to try mounting it at another location on the block and see if that helps at all (sure its been tried, but no one likes to offer free info) and maybe see if we can dampen the vibration from the charger (maybe with some kind of gasket, ec... I have a few ideas kicking around,just hate having to use mine as a test mule.

 

Cool. Keep me posted. I wish I had the time to figure something out.

You GN guys are all alike. Never afraid to try something new on your own car.

 

Its the only way to do it, but there are ways to make it safe. I just hate making a car/truck detonate on purpose w/ no knock sensor...Gotta make sure I clean out all the air wax before testing.