I was driving home in the pouring rain and when I got to my exit, I went through some water in the road. It wasn't very deep perhaps only 2 or 3 inches (I have a AEM CAI). When I was driving through it, I heard 1 high pitched metallic ping and another one 1 second later. Nothing else for the rest of the night though. Was that really ping I heard? Imagine hitting a fork to a wine glass and thats almost what I heard. My passenger heard it too so I know I'm not going nuts.
Keep in mind it was pouring rain and this ping sound was very audible through all the pounding of the rain.

 

like what everybody will tell you, it sounds like a bunch of bb's rattling in a tin can. It's only audible on the gas, depending on how bad it is, and what type of load you're putting the motor to.

 

shake a spray paint can

 

like sand hitting tin foil

 

Try putting a bunch of small pebbles inside a coffee can.. the level of noise would depend on how severe the ping is. You can usually feel the engine not running as smooth if it pings.

 

try driving an american car they ping a lot!! (at least the lumina that I had as a loner car did)

 

Interesting.. So what you're saying is when an engine pings, it just doesn't ping once and it doesn't actually sound like the word 'ping'.. Dang.. I wish someone had an audio clip. Anyone have a trashy car that pings?

 

Do you Americans know what a Diesel engine is (in a pessenger car) and how it sounds? A diesel engine pings all the time (doesn't have a spark plug)....

 

Ahh. Seems like I may have solved the mystery of my myseterious ping that didn't come from the engine. I think it was the sound my relay dying. I installed a relay for an ignition kill switch in my car. It friggin' died on me today.. I was cruising 70 mph in the left lane and my engine cut out on me. Very nice road feel without the power steering.. Also, I didn't notice much loss in braking power because of the very nice stock brakes. The relay kept on dying and coming back on and I managed to 'limp' my way back home (I was only 1 1/2 miles away from my house).

I know that making a kill switch 'open' on fail could be dangerous, but I didn't think it would happen to me. I bypassed the kill switch for now and I'm debating about putting it back in. I'll probably end up taking it out unless I decide to make the switch 'closed' on failure. This sucks. I guess its time for a hood lock..