I cant tell if my engine is pinging or not because I hear the noise but cant be sure!? Its recently come up.
For months I thought It was something loose but Ive been trying to fix those and I still hear it. It sounds exactly like knocking, a rattling coiny noise that comes after about 5000rpm under WOT. Its very noticeable.
I can be at 70% throttle, 5000rpm, steady, all fine, then I go WOT suddenly I hear the noise.
The trouble is I have a LOT of loose stuff that make almost identical noises and as the rpm increases the natural skyline VCT vibrations kick in. The dash rattles, the pillars creak. The seats creak, and tiny rocks that get caught in the tyres and get throwing in the body maxing coiny rattly noises. The bonnet and front kit isnt the tightest fitting either.
If there any way of knowing aside form a tuner, and how much does this cost?
It would be great if anyone that can tell it apart well could take a listen?
I know these common engine changes things affect pinging.
Increasing Timing
Running hotter plugs
Running more boost.
But what about spark plug gap? The only thing I have changed since the noise starter is I was having a murmur/burb under idle the recommended 0.8 gap so I went up to 1.1 maybe even 1.2. Murmur is gone, but now that pining noise is
The only thing I can think of is I was going to use new plugs as I don't like gapping however I was convinced to I re-gapped em anyway, when a mistake was made I tapped the top of spark plug ground electrode on rough cement. I'm sure this created jagged edges on the metal of the plug which likely acting as a super heated hot spit in the combustion chamber and causing additional ignition in addition to the combustion chamber this pinging?
One last question. Any experiences of things going wrong running the manufacturer recommended heat range of 5 i.e bcpr5es instead of the bcpr6es most recommend? I only run 10 psi max.
Next step is to try new plugs that haven't been mashed on cement to see if that fixes it, but I want to run bcpr5es. I want to get the mostly stock engine running as optimally as possible thus the hotter plugs.
P.S how much damage can you do in about a month of pinging, about 150-200 WOT "runs" in that time ( where pining certainly happens)