High Knock in my Talon

[john]

I am pretty sure it is 6ft/lbs. If your car has been sitting for a while, you may want to try some MCCC. I had the same problem. I cleaned the cylinders and it went away. When driving the car, hammer the gas until it knocks, get off and hammer it again and see if the knock is gone. Mine would dissapear after letting off the throttle for a second. If yours does the same, clean the cylinders.

[Halon]

Yes I think I am going to try that also. I also did do the finger tight and then just a little more with a wrench. MCCC is something I'll try as soon as I get my second car. Thanks

[Halon]

Well now that my car starts, I'm back to troubleshooting this. I am heading to the dodge dealership right now to get some MCCC. I was out there today playing with the knock sensor. I still don't have any means to torque it to a specific number. So I tried just finger tightening it, then finger tight with a little itty bitty turn of a wrench, then a little more, then barely finger tight. Nothing seems to be changing at all. This is a new knock sensor, new gas, my car doesn't have any lifter tick that I can hear.

This knock is getting ridiculous. I don't even have to by moving. I can just have it sittin in the garage, in neutral, and rev it up, and the knock is through the roof about a half second after the pedal hits the floor. We'll see if this MCCC changes anything. I also am going to double check the ignition timing. I'll write back with my findings. If this doesn't fix it, I will probably see if I can stop by LSE and have them quick torque the sensor for me since I know they have a socket for it.

[xveganxcowboyx]

If you have access to high octane gas it wouldn't hurt to try that. If it knocks on 100+ octane you can be pretty sure it's not real knock.

The weather and oil may be making your valve lash adjusters tick. They may do it even with different oil and warmer weather. If you end up needing to replace the VLA's I would search ebay for 3G lifters. Last I saw full sets were going for $100 which is the best price I've seen.

Have you done a boost leak test recently? Not sure about knock, but that can cause timing issues and I had similar problems when I was leaking boost.

[Halon]

This problem is VERY OLD. If you look at my first post, this car did this even in warm weather. Heck it did this in Arizona, so it's not the cold weather. I just didn't want to start a new thread, so I'm continuing this one.

Earlier I reset my base timing to +5 BTDC. Then I bought 2 cans of MCCC. I sprayed one completely through the PCV valve. I could only do it in 1 minute spurts though, because after about 1 minute, I couldn't hardly breath due to a beautiful exhaust leak right at my O2/DP flange. But anyway, I did that, let it idle for like 10 minutes, then took it for a ride around the block. I did see a slight improvement. I came home, parked it, pulled the plugs, and sprayed the 2nd bottle evenly into all 4 cylinders. I will let it sit overnight and clean it out tomorrow. If it's still there, then I will make sure I get that knock sensor tighted to EXACTLY what it should be.

Then if it's still there, then I will go ahead and throw some high octane gas in there and see what happens. I still don't think I have that loud of lifters, but if it's still there, I will get the new lifters. I am running plain jane Valvoline 10W30. I know Hughes is a fan of using thicker Rotella, does anyone else reccommend switching to a thicker oil? I did use Rotella once, but seemed to notice higher oil pressure with it and was a little worried about it. But maybe I was just being a chicken.

Anywho, I will write back once I see what happens tomorrow!

[tim]

Do you plan on driving this in the winter? If so I would probably stay away from the thicker oil.

[Halon]

Nope. I have another car that is my daily driver. This is my summer toy. The only winter it's seen is this year, it's been driven 3 times, but only when the roads were completely free of snow. I enjoy having a 91 with zero rust on it!

[Goat Blower]

Torqueing the knock sensor isn't that important, and won't cause the problems you're describing. It sounds like you've already got it in there just fine.

If it's carbon build-up on the pistons, letting the MCCC soak should take care of it. Make sure to change your oil immediately afterwards since you've just washed your cylinder walls down.

When I had "phantom knock", it was from dirty lifters. It wasn't audible like you'd normally hear, but it happened to be in the frequency pocket that the knock sensor picks up. No need to buy new ones, just pull yours out, let them soak in a bucket of kerosene overnight, then take each one, spin the top til the two holes line up, and blow it out with some compressed air. Compress them and put them back in, they should fill with oil in 30 seconds or so once you start the engine.

A faulty knock sensor could also be causing this, but I'm guessing that's the first thing you looked at.

[Halon]

This is a new knock sensor with probably less then a thousand miles on it.

As for cleaning them, I will try that if the rest of this doesn't work. The only thing I didn't understand is when you said 'compress them and put them back in'. What do you mean by compress them? Thanks again!

[tim]

I am pretty sure he means to compress them so all of the kerosene it out of them. You dont want to put them in filled with fluid. Correct me if I am wrong though.