my car ran fine on 8 psi, and 92 Octane. 9 psi on 94 octane, no pings.

at 10 PSI is pings slightly.

NOW, can i retard my ignition timing via the distributor a tint bit without having to re-tune with a wideband O2 (dealer), or will moving the distributor throw everything outta whack?

what are my options? race gas and 10 psi track only, thicker head gasket, less boost?

 

can knock the timing back at the distributor a bit, but you will be dropping the timing that amount throughout the entire rev-range both on and off throttle.

 

i realize that, but will the boost overcome the loss of power from retarded ignition timing?

or am i better off just backing off the boost to 9 PSI?

 

turn down the boost, if you change the static timing, then you'll throw the whoel timing map out

stan

 

understood

 

With your setup, you shouldn't be pinging at all @ 10psi of boost.

Something is really wrong here...

Either your timing map is really agressive or your fuel map really sucks!

Did you get it tuned at 10psi? Or did you got tuning with at 8psi and then figured it would be alright to go 10psi? Usually most tuners will interpolate to other columns on the map just in case. Have it checked out. You should NOT ping at 10psi with those 550 injectors of yours.

HTH