Hello, my 2002 SS has been great for the past year or so. My only complaint is the pinging. I use premium fuel, live in New England so all I can get is 93 octane. The car pings upon acceleration and sometimes for longer if on 6th gear or so. Using an octane booster mitigates the problem.

What can I check? plugs? I do not want to be buying the octane boost stuff all the time.

By the way, the car is stock aside from an intake lit and K&N filter. No headers etc

thanks in advance

 

do you have any codes? could be a bad knock sensor.

 

Thanks for the reply. No codes whatsoever. Im beginning to think that premium gas is not premium anymore. Lol

 

check connections at the knock sensor and the crank sensor. change fuel filter and check fuel pressure. how old are spark plugs, check plugs to see what shape there in. check/clean the maf.

 

Even if that were true, the knock sensor is put in place to prevent that from being a problem. So even if you were to put in 89 octane, the knock sensor would "detect" this and compensate for it. I too, would suspect a knock sensor, but a no SES light leaves me pondering.

 

Could be there's a code but no light, I've seen that before.

 

Dont know. Thanks everyone for the replies. The plugs I am sure are old (15K miles with me) but the passenger side rear look plenty old to me. I will be replacing plugs this weekend anyways.
The pinging is not constant unless I am driving like in 5th @ 1800 rpm or so then the pinging lasts quite longer. I have a computer analyzer and it gives me a clean bill of health every time :-)
I will definitely check the knock sensor although I get the impression that it is doing what it can but you never know, it is just that without the codes showing it will be a gamble.
One thing I noticed is that if I use the Gulf premium gas, this does not happen that pronounced, actually the engine behaves as it should, there may be a quick pinging upon acceleration but goes away quick. Mobil, Shell and cheapo gas present the problem I have hence my comment on the premium gas.
My fear is that it is too severe for the knock sensor to compensate for it. It goes away with octane booster.
Oh well, I have not had this issue since my SN95, and I could play with timing on that one and it would not go away. Maybe the gas blend here in the NE is not good enough.

Thanks again with the replies.

 

knock sensor could also be giving false numbers that are acceptable to the computer.

 

have a look at what the knock sensor is seeing. im sure one of the guys has the proper range for your car. also look at what the trottle position sensor is seeing. if its skipping i would think it would make it ping.. mine will do it once in a great while and its makin me nuts.