Knock sensors (Good/important information)

006

Slow mustang :(
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My car is pulling timing everytime I get on it. Seems that broken motor mounts will cause the knock sensors to activate.

Anyways, here is some useful info for the rest of us:

http://www.svtperformance.com/forum...297141-knock-sensors-wheel-hop-vs-timing.html

99-01 Cobras come equipped with knock sensors, not sure about the 96-98 Cobras and Mach 1s.

I was out working with a car with knock sensors over the weekend. In a nutshell, with the stock knock sensor parameters...a knock sensor equipped car can pull up to 6 degrees of timing when the sensor(s) activate. There is a retard rate, which determines how quickly the timing is pulled out. In stock form, the EEC will pull out one degree of timing every 1/4 second. Wheel hop will activate knock sensors.

There is an advance rate, which determines how quickly the timing is put back in the motor when no knocking is detected. One degree will be added in per X amount of seconds. In stock form, there is a "blending ramp" for timing advance. The more RPM the motor sees, the quicker the timing will come back in.

There is one more table called advance limit. Care must be taken not to populate this table with anything greater than 0. When the knock sensors are not going off, the EEC will try to advance timing when looking at this table. In stock form, this table is populated with positive values in some RPM areas. You may be in for a nasty surprise if you add timing in another area of the tune, and forget to set the knock advance table to zeros.

No. Traction control has no effect.

In a 99 Cobra ZMR2 processor, the EEC will begin to "look" at the knock sensors at 120 degrees.

Good information to have, just earlier today I was thinking on how driveline vibration can affect knock sensors. It appears that when the frequency of the vibration is in the range that the sensors read (actually, the knock sensors report everything that can be interpreted as spark knock, whether it is or not. The engine controller is programmed to choose what input from knock sensors to act upon)as spark knock, then timing will be reduced, lowering performance. Modern knock sensors do seem to be more finely tuned than the earlier ones, which could sometimes read high frequency vibration from an aggresive tire pattern as spark knock. Incidentaly, the Mach1 engine does have the knock sensors, they're located in the valley under the intake manifold.

I've heard of false positives that the knock sensors pick up from other things vibrating. Just kind of surprised that wheel hop would make the same sound.

Double hit - not only do you have no traction, but you're down on power as well.

If you've got a supercharger on your 99-01 just get a GOOD tune, turn the knock sensors off, run only good name brand 93 octane, listen for detonation.

My tuner turned the knock sensor off, but you can still log knock sensor with the Xcal2 to see what they would be doing, and the timing pulled is all over the place throughout a WOT pull, glad mine are off.

Yes, it is possible to "turn the knock sensors off". There are a couple of ways actually. But, you have to be aware of a few things.

One way to turn them off is by a switch under scalars. It is much like the method that the rear O2 sensors are turned off.

Another is engine temperature related. There is a threshhold at which the EEC looks for to begin using the knock sensors to change timing. Setting this higher than the engine's operating temperature will disable the sensors.

The third is to populate the knock sensor advance and retard rate tables with all zeros.

When setting a knock sensor equipped car's timing tables up for best performance, a tuner must take care to populate the advance rate tables with all zeros. When the EEC sees no reading from the knock sensors in the stock tune, it will ADVANCE timing. If a tuner sets up timing to be higher than stock in other areas (borderline knock table) and neglects the advance from the knock sensor tables...it is possible to see advanced timing beyond what is being commanded in the borderline table. That is one little way to add some unforseen timing and possibly make something go pop.

-"03Steve" under Reggie's screenname-

I can tell when I set mine off. It it only would happen when there was a huge shock to the drivetrain.

Oh, I noticed it alot when my motor mounts where broke... if that has anything to do with it.
 
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Double"O"

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the '03-04 doesn't have them so..

they won't fit in the valley with the lower ont he 03/04s, that and they would retard timing from the vibes the blower put out

My car did the same thing with the KB...my knock sensors are set to thier lowest possible setting and in they really don't do anything anymore lol

Good Info...Now how do you turn the knock sensors off?


you can tune them down or out with SCT or Diablo software (not with a handheld though)

006, the knock sensors will take away a lot more that 6 degrees...i watched a blown 01 vert taking 10 degrees out (because it was picking up vibes from a KB)...when we looked at the data the total timing was like 3 degrees...it was ugly lol

and yeah the motor mounts being broken will cause that as well...happened to my friends 98 Cobra
 
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Brutal Metal

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Do you think you could run 93 Octane and the knocks turned off with normally aspirated WOT spark advance in the 26-28 range without getting detonation??
I'm not sure if Rick at Amazon turned mine off in the Tune, I'll ask him when I send my datalogs for a revision this week..
 

006

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They are a double edged sword.

Supposed to protect you, but will cut you at the same time.

I can feel when my car loses power and it's annoying as hell. In my case, it's because of the thud thud thud noise coming from underneath my motor due to my broken motor mounts..and everytime this noise happens, car starts to feel underpowered.

I can almost guarantee that turning the knock sensors off will result in much higher RWHP numbers for every one of our cars.

Hell, even loud thumpy music or loud exhaust will probably set them off.
 

SVTPower97

she's broken :(
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if your talking to me, if you look closely youll notice mines an 01

really? what the hell are we suppose to tell by i can't...i love the car thought it looks mean as shit i seen it in some other threads and really liked it but just figured it was a termi
 

Brutal Metal

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How many New Edge guys with Custom tunes know For Sure that their knocks are turned off?? If so what WOT spark advance are you running? I might need to start a thread on this..
 

2001asp

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This thread is getting good...... Here is a link to my dyno sheet. The last pull was with the knock sensors turned off. I was running crappy 7-11 93octane fuel and my tuner wanted to show what my car was capable of. I think in my current form the sensors are a little desensitized. I made some excellent gains though....318.6hp and 335tq is pretty respectable for my mods. Here is a link to my Dyno sheet....Imageshack - 01cobrasm5 Click on FULL SIZE when you get to the page....
 

Jamie R.

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Brutal I know that my knock sensors are off, now. If you are using the SCT software then you might wanna get your tuner to check your file, becuase SCT has a backwards turn off for our computers. Unless there has been a design change, which I seriuosly doubt there has. The SCT software has a oddity for our cars where whe nthe file is opened the sensors are shown to be off, but they are not. The tuner will have to turn the sensors on and then that lets the tuner turn the sensors off. Ken at Modular Depot told me about this after trying to figure out why I could'nt run nothing but I 12.70 after having my car tuned with SCT and it made more than power than when I ran the 12.45. I don't know about Diablo.

Jamie R.
 

tmhutch

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If access to a tuner is a problem, a temporary solution is to simply un-bolt them from the block. Wrap them up and lay them in the valley. They receive/send no input/output.
 

OzzDOA

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My knock sensors are turned off and I am running at 28* total timing at WOT and have been for a year without any issues. Just checked my plugs a month ago and they look almost brand new.
 

Double"O"

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How many New Edge guys with Custom tunes know For Sure that their knocks are turned off?? If so what WOT spark advance are you running? I might need to start a thread on this..

mine are ...i watched herman take care of that

my car sees 15 degrees total at WOT and 16 on my race tune (pretty safe)
 

VtekII

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really? what the hell are we suppose to tell by i can't...i love the car thought it looks mean as shit i seen it in some other threads and really liked it but just figured it was a termi

ha ha well as you can tell i love the looks of the 03, i dont have anything against the looks of the new edge, but i LOVE the look of 03. since i used to do body work it didnt cost me anything to do it, other than parts. o and my mirrors and hood are still stock! lolthanks for the compliment tho!
 

hi_po_heads

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dang, i just noticed the other day, when my car wheel hops, it never picks power back up. i have to stop and take off easier. then the power feels fine. this sucks
 

SVTPower97

she's broken :(
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If access to a tuner is a problem, a temporary solution is to simply un-bolt them from the block. Wrap them up and lay them in the valley. They receive/send no input/output.

will there be no oil leakage or anything? what do you wrap them up in just electrical tape?...can you give me some specifics it might be something i really need to do
 

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