Pinging doesn't sound like pinging . . . at all!

So this morning after I put in some what may have been crappy gas I noticed some rattling on acceleration. I assumed it was something coming loose under the hood (nothing important, maybe some suspension stuff or a tire). I drive around with Bryant and he's like "so how long has your engine been detonating?" . . . so today I learned that pinging sounds more like rattling.
We got under the hood and my timing was off, we fixed it and the pining is gone and runs much better already.

 

Now you just need to figure out how/why your timing was off...

 

I can't figure out why. Don't think the hold down bolt was loose, the distributor was in there pretty solid. Maybe the distributor is getting old?

 

gear may have spun on dist shaft

 

It ran so much cooler after we set the timing. I think Bryant said he put in more initial timing since the mechanical advance has been messed with by that dyno shop I went to.

Coming home tonight I noticed it's pinging again so the gears must be bad. Couldn't be my timing chain could it?

 

Possibly. Sounds like you got some kinda curse.

 

you think it's the radiator?

 

LOL! No... I heard things happen when you dyno.
Hows the damper? New?

 

i think he had bad gas. when mo had his car dyno tuned, the guy working on it couldnt figure out why the distrubor was advanceing to around 60 degrees. so the guy welded something in the new distrubtor that mo had just put in to limit the advance. then he realised that the vacuum advance was causing the high advance numbers. so mo's distrubor only has about 12 degrees of mechanical advance in it thanks to the brain surgen that worked at jba. so they had the inital timeing set at 22 degrees, and total adavance at 34 degrees. i backed it down to 20 degrees. im sure that it helped with the lower rpm performance and the detination. he probly lost a few ponys at his horsepower peak but overall the car should drive beter.

mo, goto a auto parts store and get a bottle of octane booster and put it in. that should help with the pinging and then see what happens on your next tank of gas. oh and what brand of gas are you useing?

 

It was working well, but later on tonight after driving it around some more I got a little more pinging. I was using Arco's 87 octane. Tomorrow I'll try 89 and if that doesn't do it I'll try the octane juice.

Hey Bryant, what aftermarket dizzy you recommend for this motor? Nothing too fancy but since I'll be running with with the blower I might as well get a decent distributor.

 

Bryant commented on the damper, looks kinda old. The rubber was a little ratted around the edges.

 

Sounds to me like that distributor's F--KED now. Time for to start fresh with a new one. And octane booster ? :deadhorse I've yet to see any of that snake oil work. Go to the parts house and buy a new distributor.

 

It makes my lawn mower purr.
Get a distributor, damper, noisy gear set and time it one last time.

Maybe someone can tell you where the mark on the damper should be in relation to the key. Then you will know if it has spun. A good pic would be great. Could even post it in the tech article section for refrence. I would like to see a new one tho.

 

At least he didn't put diesel fuel in it...

 

Mo, first off arco gas sucks!!!. i like cheveron, exon, 76, or moboil. i have found arco gas to get worse gas milage that the others listed. it seems to leave deposits alot faster than the others also.
i have used octane booster with great sucess to stop pinging in cars that acidently got too low of octane fuel put in them. octane booster is not snake oil. its the chemicals that the fuel companys add to the fuel to creat its octane rateing.
i have a mallory unilite that we can put in your car. it may need a new module, but those are not very expensive. we will need to get a balast resitsor but those are cheap also. ill bring it to the shop with me on monday.