Tune-Up......Now its pinging.....

[JaxCamaroGuy]

OK, it was time for a tune up. Replaced the old plugs and stock wires with AC Delco Rapidfires and taylor spiro pro wires. Cranked it up purred like a kitten. Took it out on the road and romped on it......pinp ping ping......but after a few mins of driving it the ping got less and less and it finally went away and it runs fine now.......could it be that the computer was relearning and adjusting?I`m just wondering if i should be worried. BTW its a 96 3.8 camaro 5spd.....TIA

[FunkZ]

Did you check the gap on those plugs before installing them? I know the plug gap should be more on a 3.8 than a 3.4

If the pinging went away on its own it probably means the computer retarded the timing.

[JaxCamaroGuy]

yea i gapped them @ what my car calls for.....

[JaxCamaroGuy]

I pulled the plugs and checked.......all gaps were correct, im clueless here

[FunkZ]

What plugs/wires were you running before? What octane is in the tank? How many miles on the car?

I have often gotten knock when running 87 in my car. I've replaced plugs, wires, coils, ICM, IAT, O2's, cleaned the IAC, throttle body and fogged the motor. It would still ping on 87, very occasionally on 89 and not at all on 92+ so I have run the high octane pretty much the entire time I've owned it. I've been told by some that there is something wrong with my car if it won't run on 87 but if there is I wish I knew what it was. Otherwise my car runs stronger than ever even with 160k miles on the motor. I've put 120k of those miles on and the car has always exhibited these symptoms.

By coincidence, I generally run the Rapidfires as well. Occasionally I have used the Bosch Platinums but I did not feel these performed as well as the Delco's and I did not get as good of gas mileage either. Perhaps it has something to do with the brand of plug, however I am fairly certain I have heard the car knock on the Bosch and I know it did on the Autolites that were in the car when I bought it.

I continue to use either 93 or 94 octane gas because that is what my car performs best with. After recently reprogramming with the Hypertech, it would most certainly knock more often if I switched back at this point and pretty much nullify any performance benefit the HPP programming gave.

Maybe someone can suggest something else to try to cure the "problem" but for me, simply running the higher octane seems to keep the car much happier.

[Razzer]

GM cars are very picky when it comes to spark plugs, if you were to take it to a dealer the first thing that they do is replace any aftermarket plug with the stock ac delcos. For some unknown reason the delcos work better and they are pretty cheap for our cars compared to the aftermarket equiviliants. So try to stay with delco platium or irridium for our cars, now problems here with 87 and a jet chip. My dad is a gm tech, ASE certified.

[FunkZ]

Heh, well you would think with AC Delco Rapidfires there wouldn't be a problem.

[JaxCamaroGuy]

Heh well i found the problem......i got to lookin @ my gap guage.......the size doesnt even change its one size all the way around..... WTF went and bought one from pep boys and found all my plugs were gapped @ .050 in stead of .060.........now aint that some ****........now im able to run 89 w/ no ping havent tried the 87 yet......