Southern_Rotary

In my JDM FD over a year ago I had a PowerFC and catless midpipe installed by a well known rotary shop, and when I drove it away the first thing I noticed was the cat heat lamp was flashing at seemingly random. One phone call immediately to the shop and they assured me it was nothing to worry about. Well, after putting around 10,000km on the car and DOZENS of WOT top speed pulls I came across the owners manual of the PowerFC. Reading into it, I see that the PowerFC replaces the cat heat lamp with a check engine lights of sorts. Staying on if a sensor is failed, or flashing in certain intervals if knock threshold is exceeded. I have some footage of some pulls where you can see the cat heat light flashing and and slowed it is clear it is flashing 3 times at .1 second intervals which is the flash for indicating knock threshold is exceeded. My immediate first thought was that my engine was knocking and something was wrong with my tune/whatever, well I then realized if my engine was actually pre-igniting, it would have blown up a long time ago, right? Currently no signs of losing compression or any other signs of engine damage. Runs perfect and dynos at the same power consistently. Taking a look at my knock sensor itself, it seems to be leaking a small amount of fluid, which is I assume means it is going bad, as there must be fluid in there to try and prevent interference to the sensor. I do not know how long it has been leaking but from the amount of fluid on the block, it cannot have been very long, probably under 2 months with a slow drip.

Does anyone have any kind of input? Is the stock knock sensor even worth a damn with a straight through midpipe and very high flowing HKS catback? Am I just the owner of the world's strongest 13B (definitely not lol) Should I try replacing the knock sensor and going from there?

DaleClark

iTrader: (55)

This is in the PFC manual. The exhaust overheat light can be set to blink on high knock and also on high injector duty cycle.

If you have the commander in the car you can monitor both and see if they are getting to alarming levels.

All knock sensors have their potting compound leak out over time. It doesn't necessarily mean it's bad or failed.

Dale