Audible Pinging - Negative timing corrections

K-Rimes

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Trying to sort out a very annoying issue on my 2015 that has been frustrating me for a few weeks.

Bought the car all stock, 57k miles. It had a new slave, trans fluid, and clutch put in at 53k miles at the dealer so felt like a decent buy. Did the usual new vehicle to me program of oil, filter, sparkplugs (iridium) etc. Drove just fine.

Out of curiosity I wanted to uncork it and get a Cobb. Ran fine on Stage 1. Got the itch for stage 2 and did intercooler (Mountune), and Koyo rad. Ran fine again. Timing belt has already been done. Car has 67k miles now.

Popped on a stage 2 tune (at this time, who it is doesn't matter, the issue is with my car), and was quite pleased with it. I noticed a weird kazoo noise in the cabin and figured the symposer was leaking, so I deleted that with a Whoosh plug. That's when the issues started or maybe they'd been there the whole time, but the symposer cabin noise was covering them up. I heard noticeable pinging from the car under load, still pulled fine, but I thought eh, maybe it's a boost leak. Cut the hose shorter on both ends, put on a new clamp on both sides. Still there. Replaced plugs with pre-gapped to .028 ruthenium from Tunewerks. Still pinging. I did send the tune to the tuner, who said it didn't look good and suggested bad gas. I've run 5 tanks through it, all from busy stations, a mix of Shell, 76, and Chevron - same result across all brands.

To start, yes, I have read the article from Stratified about negative timing corrections. I've been seeing a very regular -3, even -4 on all 4 cylinders and the tune just feels sluggish, it's pulling timing the entire pull and you can audibly hear pinging from the engine. Even taking the car back to Stage 1 Cobb, I am hearing pinging. It seems crazy to me to have to go back to stock after all this.

Where should I look at next to try to try to cure this issue? I am at wits end.
 


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#2
What's your current octane adjust ratio (OAR) on the accessport?
 


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K

K-Rimes

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Thread Starter #3
What's your current octane adjust ratio (OAR) on the accessport?
I have not been able to get it to -1.00. It seems to float around -.65 to -.80.

On the iridium I was not getting any misfires. I got a bunch of them with the Ruthenium after install, and the pulled timing is even worse now. After seeing that, I put it back to stage 1 again while I sort out these issues. I ordered some coils from Whoosh, which I have not yet installed, but I can't really imagine that all 4 OEM coilpacks would go bad at the same time, shy of 70k miles.

I did also check my fuel pressure just in case, and requested fp and actual is lining up nicely.
 


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Thread Starter #4
I replaced the plugs with Ruthenium, and the coil packs with Whoosh (I know they're not universally loved, but for the price was worth trying), loaded up the Stage 2 and very carefully got the OAR down to -1.00. The tuner recommended I add 1-2g of e85, which I did, and the pinging disappeared. I have since ran through that tank and am waiting to see if the change is permanent. I still hear a touch of pinging, but it is much improved from before.

I think it may have been the OAR not being optimized?
 




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