OK...

I am apparently the dumbest guy alive....

My car has been making a very "ping-like" noise for, oh, about 2 years... well I finally figured I'd retard the timing to see if it was the timing (I was convinced it was the alternator pulley).

Well it's gone now... so wtf did I do to my engine...

It's easily been pinging for 70k... and it's got 160k on it. It still runs great (always did short of the pinging)... just curious how bad it really is on the inside...

I may or may not open it up to see.... just curious if anyone has any experience with a similar case.

 

Bad pinging can do some serious damage, like cracking sleeves, pistons, ring lands, rings, valves, heads. It really depends how bad it was. If your car doesn't smoke, consume oil, overheat, or run too bad, you may be ok. Do a compression check and a leakdown to see how the motor is holding up. Otherwise, keep driving it and run better gas.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by AzSi22 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Bad pinging can do some serious damage, like cracking sleeves, pistons, ring lands, rings, valves, heads. It really depends how bad it was. If your car doesn't smoke, consume oil, overheat, or run too bad, you may be ok. Do a compression check and a leakdown to see how the motor is holding up. Otherwise, keep driving it and run better gas.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I'm sure it's fine... the pinging was bad. It did it EVERYTIME I was in anywhere between 2-3k... I only use sunoco 93.

The only symptom mentioned that's applicable to me is my car overheats occaisionally... OK fine when I run at 90+ in 4th up hill on the highway... (there's a spot going to my buddies house where we always race... and it overheats occaisonally going up that hill in 4th)... I'm thinking that that is because of the consistant running at 6k plus... (like sustained for 2min. plus.)

 

Easiest thing is to take a look at the plugs. If they have little shiny spots all over them, that's little bits of the piston that were vaporized and re-plated themselves on the plugs. The electrodes may also be very burned. If they look OK with no damage or odd deposites, you may be OK. Compression and leakdown tests are easier than tearing off the head to take a look.

As far as the overheating at speed, I would suspect something wrong with the cooling system. When I run my GSR on the track, I spend 30+min with minimum revs of 5200, mostly above 6k and the temp only runs slightly higher than cruising on the highway. Runnning at speed, you should have plenty of airflow to dump the heat.

 

Yeah that's what I was thinking... I think it was due to the too far advanced timing... (the overheating).

I've changed/inspected the plugs pretty regularly and there are NO signs of detonation on them...

I'm sure it's fine but I feel like a moron for not just doing it over a year ago...

Oh and I came up with a great joke for domestic guys....

Q:"how do you adjust the timing on a civic?"
A:"To advance it you turn it towards the "advanced" engine. To retard it... turn it towards the RETARD.".... get it like civic drivers are retards.... lol.