Can I suggest you experiment with a different brand of gas other than chevron and see if anything changes.

 

I have posted about my malfuctioning coil and since it has been replaced the ping is gone. Just to update things, Today while loaded and in overdrive I began up and hill I heard some ping. Just to see how bad it would get I gave it more gas. That usaully got it to ping very bad. To my surprise the pinging stopped. Did the knock sensor do its job.?

 

What's funny is that there is no reason a coil should cause a ping - UNLESS it's firing earlier...

 

That is correct. There is no way a coil can advance the spark timing on it's own unless it's being fired earlier in the cycle.
It can, however cause later timing in the oppisite direction from ping.
Here is how one device now on the market is used to control ping and detonation in blower and nitrous use by directly controlling the saturation time of indivdual coils.
A control circuit with 8 pairs or however many is needed, one pair for each coil is bridged accross each coil.
The control circuit is sensor driven by a knock sensor.
When knock is detected, the controller clamps onto the coils and holds the saturation time longer before allowing the coil to spark the plug.
Said another way, this is directly the same as lengthing the Dwell time on the coil.
This action has the same effect as retarding the original motor timing until the knock is no longer detected then the controller releases the clamping voltage on the coil allowing it to revert back to the stock operation.
I have near first hand knowlege of this haveing been contacted by the inventor for some disscussions about how it would work on individual coil engines like a Ford and what effects it might have on the PCM operation as far as generating fault codes.
Very simple in concept and very clever at the same time.
The controller is adjustable in clamping time and self senses how long to clamp and even what individual cylinders to control, at any given time, should there be a difference in individual cylinder sensivity to ignition timing.
I would not be supprised if the concept finds it's way into OEM applications at some point in the future as a backup to the present Knock sensing designs, if it is not already being used by some mfger.

 

Theory of ignition coils is obviously interesting to some. Getting back to the truck…

Since replacing the thermostat, I drove the truck over a 4000 ft mountain pass. I was moderately loaded at about 8000# gross with no trailer. With 87 octane fuel, it does not have the hard ping under load when climbing big hills. Please note, I have not yet towed a trailer, which would put significantly more load on the engine.

Even though the heavier load, hard pinging has been markedly improved with the new thermostat, the engine still has a light ping on 87 octane. The light ping is most noticeable in OD on slight hills. With 89 octane, this light ping is pretty much eliminated.

So far, the only part change that has made any noticeable difference on the pinging is the thermostat. The old thermostat only opening about half way presumably restricted coolant flow under sustained heavy load conditions enough to cause some pinging without any observable temperature rise on the temperature gauge.

As previously reported, changing the knock sensor had no effect on the pinging.

 

I pulled a trailer with the combined GW about 14,000#. With 87 octane the engine pings very hard under this kind of load from 1500 RPM to above 4000 RPM. Modulating the throttle has no appreciable effect on the ping, unless I let off the throttle to the point of no longer pulling.

It seems as if the engine control is not getting feedback from the knock sensor or not responding to the feedback.

I will ask around to see if I can find a mechanic that can diagnose the knock sensor feedback.

Until then, I will run high octane fuel when I pull the trailer.

 

Weird! (I said that about six times in this thread I think).

I'm beginning to think your either so loaded up carbon it's ridiculous, OR - the input to the PCM for the knock sensor is blown.

I wonder how hard it would be to find a PCM with the same code from a junkie?

 

Weird for sure. Still subscribed....

Doug

 

Try some 89 on a real hot day and if it does not ping then your good if it does then try 93 on a hot day and see if your pinging stops..

Always use the least octane you can safely without pinging knocking.Thats gonna give you the most power performance.

 

Any updates?

Doug

 

I had the injectors flushed by a mechanic.

No difference in the light load pinging with 87 octane.

I will update when I pull the loaded trailer.

 

Still pinging? I always come back to this thread because I'm hoping you find a solution!



Doug

 

See my other recent post about the plug in the bottom of the air box allowing in unmetered air on my '01

 

I can't believe this. I've read through these threads and i've got a headache. Its not even my truck.
Eric you deserve the award for endurance in putting up with these guys thick skulls.
Lets get back to some basics.
Has anyone suggested a smoke test to make sure you dont have some vacume, intake manifold, exhaust, or emission system leak?

When you did your tune-up did you replace the spark plug boots and springs? And coat them with dielectric coumpound inside boots? A coil missfire can POP like a ping sound.

Are your oxygen sensors fresh or clean? They can be bad/slow responding and still not trigger a MIL light.

One bad injector can cause problems. Without a reader OBDII basic we can't tell you if there are missfire codes present in the system.

What if anything besides the ping can you describe as a driveability problem now and since these repairs. Power loss, acceleration taper, Throttle response or delay & at RPM?

I'd hate to see this great debate team waste their semantics on something as simple as a TPS sensor problem at normal problem area of 45MPH to 55MPH range.

I'd like to just see Eric get his truck fixed. Nothing else. As a moderator you shouln't have let this go this far. Boot me for all I care. It sickens me.

Move over I'm coming and I'm peeved. ........ Rich.

 

Why gee, thanks!

A few points. Since his drivability and shifting seem to be OK, that doesn't point at a TPS.

A bad injector would have shown up by changing the condition of one of the plugs. As stated by Eric, all the plugs were exactly the same color when he changed them.

I don't think a bad/misfiring COP will sound like the traditional "ping" - and it wouldn't get any better by putting in 89 octane. Which Eric stated does lessen the ping.

I'm still leaning towards the knock sensor input being blown on the PCM.

Believe it or not, there were others here in the past who had exactly that happen to them. A Ford tech replaced their PCM and the problem went away - but who knows if that was the issue, or the PCM was flashed with a retarded-timing map.

The point about a vacuum leak is a good one. However, whenever someone has had a vacuum leak on a V10 or any other Ford modular, there are driveability issues not described in Eric's posts.

You see, we've been diagnosing all sorts of things over the past 5 years here in the FTE V10 forum. After a while, we leave out the obvious things that stick out like a sore thumb. Pinging has been solved in the past, doing the exact things that FortyFords has mentioned, along with all the other suggestions.

But it would be a good idea to check for vacuum leaks anyway.

--

On a side note, I deal with nasty people like you all the time - I won't boot you

What I don't understand is how some know-it-all can come into a thread they've never posted in and be so negative.

Please, carry on! It's amusing.

Again, I won't boot you - I'll leave it to the community to take care of that.