For the past several months, my car has been running like crap. I've been gradually losing torque throughout the powerband. Low end torque had seriously fallen off, I had a huge flat spot in the midrange, and anything above 5000 rpm was just a big waste of gas. Searching for the source of the problems, I had tried a lot of different things. The only trouble code I ever got was code 12, which is totally normal and fine for my setup.

I had gone through cycles of trying to fix it, and then giving up. Well the other night, on a hunch, I finally broke down and bought a new knock sensor. I would have tried it earlier if they weren't so expensive. Well, as it turns out, my old knock sensor was bad. My car runs great again. Mind you I never got a knock sensor trouble code.

So I've been running around with retarded timing for god only knows how long. At least 6 months, possibly a year or more. I don't know. I figure dumping raw fuel into the exhaust would shorten the life of my cat. converter, but I just recently replaced it with a new hi-flow cat so thats not an issue. Could I have possibly damaged anything else from doing this?

 

I know there are plenty of threads on here dealing with the effects of running retarded timing, but I kinda doubt many people have driven 40,000+ miles/~1 year with the timing backed way off...

nobody has any thoughts?