spastic

Hello all... I have some questions. I took my maxima in to have a P0011 code diagnosed. They said my intake valve timing solenoid failed and they replaced it. When I picked the vehicle up they also informed me that when the tech took it out for a test drive, he noticed a considerable amount of ping. They decided to retard my timing by 6 degrees to correct this.

I have been plagued by pinging ever since I've owned the vehicle and I've participated in a few discussions regarding pinging in these forums. Is retarding the timing generally an end all solution or is this merely a bandaid? My pinging is totally gone now but I've noticed bad gas milage and poor performance as a result. The whole driving experience feels a bit retarded now. Are there any other negatives to this solution that the dealer has provided me with; besides bad fuel economy and lack of performance?

Thanks for any assistance.

NYPD-Arnold

iTrader: (8)

6-degrees? WTF. You retard either one or two. Not 6.

MaximaPolak

iTrader: (9)

That can't be good for performance. What kind of gas did you use before the retarded the timing?

I would get it checked somewhere what º of timing you are at now.

spastic

I believe I had 91 in it. The octane rating has no bearing on my ping problem... Trust me.

GBAUER

iTrader: (2)

so...many....comments..... trying...to....resist.....


Ditto on finding out what it's at now. Should be 14-17 degrees. if it's at 17, stick with nothing but premium. 14 you can use either premium or mid grade. Stuff inbetween you'll have to test it out.

spastic

Well I'm considering taking it back and having them adjust it back to stock settings. They said they would do that free of charge since they never initially informed be that they were messing with the timing at all. During all of this I inquired about flashing the ECU with a newer version. They said there was a newer version but had no clue what it changed. 90 dollars is what they want to charge. When I go back to stock timing settings my ping will inevitably return. Wondering if flashing the ECU with a newer version will have any bearing on the pinging.

s0ber

iTrader: (7)

I've heard alot about oil catch cans reducing pinging on the 3.5 motors, theres a thread under this one about it...

Oil Blowby..

spastic

Yeah.. Thanks s0ber. I put one of those together from home depot and I've been using that and collecting plenty of oil for almost a year now. I think it decreased my ping slightly. Also put together my own grounding kit which had no effects.

Anyone have any additions to my list of negative side effects from retarding the timing? So far I have poor gas milage, poor performance, and now fouling of the spark plugs. I assume this will have no damaging effects on the motor.?.

5thgenmaxima

iTrader: (1)

if you have fouling of the spark plugs, then I assume you are also having pre-ignition issues??
retarding the timing simply fires your plugs at a different time..Pre-ignition is basically the a/f mixture going off in the cylinder before the spark plug lights it. This could be bad and it will heat the hell out of your internals if all that air/fuel doesn't burn in the chamber at exactly the right time. (think about it doing this 1500 times a minute, getting hotter and hotter....) Preignition causes powerloss and can cause severe damage to pistons, rings and valves the same way detonation can.---never a good thing---very, very bad.
to understand timing you have to understand a how a piston operates. Basically one full revolution or 2 strokes of a piston is 180 degrees.(crankshaft rotation) (down and back up) so, if you set your timing to 15 degrees, that means that your spark plug will light the air/fuel mixture in your compustion chamber at exactly 15 degrees before your piston hits TDC (top dead center.) Higher octane fuel burns slower, so basically the more you advance your timing the higher octane fuel you have to put in so it doesn't all burn BTDC (Before top dead center.) If you retard your timing to say 10 degrees and run 93 octane -assuming you don't have any pre-ignition (unlikely seeing as how your plugs are fouling already) that fuel may not have all burned by the time you reach 5-10 degrees ATDC (after top dead center) and said fuel will remain in the chamber until your exhaust stroke and the 02's will pick this up. As I stated earlier it can cause major internal engine damage, carbon build up, and wear out your exhaust emissions components really quickly.
thank you gbauer for the info... never knew these cars ran so far back from TDC.-My "performance car" is only set @ 12 degrees, any more and I lose power-even if I add higher octane.-Now I fully understand why 91 octane. wow-17 degrees on a "stock" engine....that's impressive. (import newbie)

spastic

Thanks for the info 5thgenmaxima. I did not really know the mechanics of how timing works with engines. Are there any tell tail signs that preignition is occuring. I've been told that preignition is a knock. Never really understood the difference between a knock and ping though, or the sound difference for that matter.

As far as my plugs go. I was referring to a comment from a coworker that retarding timing makes the vehicle run rich which inturn fouls the plugs. I have not made a physical check on that one. All I can attest to is the lack of performance and my poor gas mileage. This sounds a bit funny but the car smells different now. Almost like the exhaust fumes have unburnt fuel vapors in them.

So, which would be the worse of the two evils. Living with an annoying ping, getting decent gas milage, and having good performance, or eliminating the ping by dramatically retarding the timing, getting poor performance and bad gas milage? Which one is going to cause more damage?

Thanks for the help.

R.I.P. Grandma

Go back to your dealer and tell them to set your timing to 14* which is the stock timing for 02-03, or you can try 15* which is the stock timing for 00-01, but you will probably ping alittle more than at 14*. See if there is any pinging at those * and see if your performance goes back to normal.

remembermorriso

I run 17 degrees no problem with 89. But you definately need to find out what it is at now, because six degrees is just rediculous.

5thgenmaxima

iTrader: (1)

good advice from R.I.P. stick with stock timing @ 14 or 15. I personally wouldn't want retarded timing or any ping.one is just as bad as the other, IMO. some will say pre-ignition is worse, either way you don't want either.. setting your timing is a very simple process.(If you don't know what stock is). You just advance it until you hear the ping, back it off a few degrees and your set. I would think 91 octane would be good enough for 14. When he said 17 I thought OMG- you would probably ping with anything less than 93 and would probably have minimal if any performanc gains. (I'm new to nissans, so I could be wrong)
Remember optimal conditions are--put in recommended fuel and advanced as far as possible before "detonation".
Another thing you may want to keep in mind is your type of fuel usage. if you are in a place that sells ethanel get no less than 93.Ethanel acts as an octane booster. Basically they take 89 fuel add 10% ethanel and it adds 2 octane. (91.) We have done many tests at local gas stations and the highest amount of ethanel ever found in gasoline was 5% even though 10% was advertised. Ethenel is more expensive than gasoline, but corporations get huge tax breaks when adding 10%...Typically they cheat the system and only add 3-5% and false advertise the octan rating--giving you 89 or 90 octane.--Also Ethenal has less btu's per gallon which means it requires more to use the same amount of energy. I question why they backed it down so far? Does it ping @ 12 or 13, I would start asking some questions as to why?? Maybe you have excessive carbon build up on your valves/thru the intake?.. Have you ever done a cleaning? I forget what its called but you basically hook it into one of your vacuum hoses going into your intake and it cleans all that crap out..--I'm not surprised the car smells different..I'm surprised your 02's haven't set a mil yet...BTW don't the early 3.5's have overly sensitive knock sensors that retard the timing automatically??-I thought I read that somewhere a few years ago, I think on car & drivers review-maybe it was somewhere else.
I was typing when you posted. 17 with 89 and no ping? that's amazing- Did you notice an increase in performance from stock? what about fuel consumption??

jreddington3

I'm worndering how you adjust the timing? In the old days with a distributer it was an easy mechanical tweak while using your timing light.

But I'm assuming in modern cars this is handled by the ECU. Is there a way to reprogram this or is does it require a dealer compter connection?

irish44j

iTrader: (38)

The only way is with the CONSULT II, which is an electronic reprogramming device, usually only available at Nissan dealers and a few other places. They cost a couple thousand bucks, so most individuals don't own one.

slvr2KSE5

in both my maxima and my 3000gt ive noticed the least ping running shell fuel. tesoro is the worst. 76 is a middle ground between the 2.



a friends STi was also pinging. i told him try shell gas and he said it fixed it.


get your timing back. thats why you have poor economy and power.

5thgenmaxima

iTrader: (1)

I should have asked have you ever changed your spark plugs from stock to a "high performance" plug? This can cause lots of "ping" and other issues as well.. I didn't think to ask you, but unless you are going for higher performance stick with the stock plugs (IMHO) they are set to burn the fuel correctly and are the best design for your engine. (NGK I assume are stock???) If you have stock plugs, then I'm OT.

jreddington3

Looking at the shop manual it does show a way of reading the timing using a timing light. Not worth it to me to buy a timing light if all I can do is read it, not adjust it.

Also the specs in the shop manual show timing 15 deg. BTDC, +/- 5 degrees. That seems like a pretty wild allowable spread.

Manual also has procedures to do some kind of auto resetting of timing with or without the Consult. You follow procedures for "Accellerator Pedal Released Position Learning", "Throttle Valve Closed Position Learning", and "Idle Air Volume Learning". Will give those a shot on my girlfriend's '02 GLE on the slim chance that that might be off and reset to improve her lousy gas mileage.

Jay_Alix

The only way to advance/retard timing is this? or the only way to reprogram?
I have seen a few people mention advancing the timing, so I was wondering if they are doing it like jreddington3 said, just moving the distrubutor or having the computer reprogrammed.

remembermorriso

search for a detailed description.

enter this into google site:forums.maxima.org then at the end put timing advance or anything else.

NmexMAX

iTrader: (22)

Performance plugs? I think the main concern here is what heat range.


Maybe 20 years ago ... Irish stated it correctly.


This is base timing , remember that.

Lontar1

iTrader: (5)

you have to remember that most of the NIssan Tech are retarded...no offense of course....

spastic

I will be doing this shortly... I'm also going to ask some more questions like what was the timing set to prior to the tech retarding it. Thanks

spastic

Any grade of gas I use from any major station doesn't eliminate my ping. I have noticed 91 on occasion decreasing it slightly.

Since all the regulations were lifted on the fuel we're pumping into our cars I don't think we're getting what we're paying for. I never thought this but your point just proved that.

I believe you are talking about Seafoam. I've used this twice with no negative or positive effects. Just lots of white smoke.

I'm starting to think my timing might have been really high to pull it down by 6 degrees. This leads me to think that my knock sensor might not be working properly but since it doesn't throw a code the tech thinks it's fine. Wonder if I should just replace it just to knock it out ot the equation.

spastic

Now something I don't understand is that if they set the timing with the CONSULT II to a specific degree, won't the whole knock sensor, ecu setup start to adjust it again? Can they actually lock in a degree of timing and force the ecu to ignore the info coming from the knock sensor. I've always wondered about that.

spastic

Stock NGK platinum plugs in my car. I considered replacing them with a differen't heat range to possible counter the ping issue. Decided against the whole idea once I found out how hard the 3 plugs in the rear are to change.

5thgenmaxima

iTrader: (1)

Please correct me if I'm wrong but where it is set at is a "starting point". An engine is most efficient (performance and fuel economy) and reliable right before detonation. I've heard the ecu advances the timing until it hears a slight ping then backs it off to the set timing, it then advances it till it hears a slight ping then retards it again (or until a predetermined degree if no ping from knock sensor), back and forth. Someone with a little more knowledge may be able to confirm?--This is also in closed loop status, while not @ WOT, etc.
Also call them and ask them what they retarded it too, We all are interested.