Just a curious question?

 

Haltech has no ability to use any knock sensor as of this moment...


-Ted

 

Notice he said at this moment ... hint hint

 

Is it really needed? Provided it is tuned properly?

 

It really depends on the tuners abilities...
Sure, it makes it easier to spot detonation, especially if you're deaf like me due to age!
It's not absolutely necessary to have though...


-Ted

 

Well when tuning is good knock sensing only has a place when you get bad gas or something really abnormal is going on in your motor, ie hot spots in your motor for whatever reason. Or at least that is the way I see it.

 

What he said. Car manufacturers are some of the best tuners in the world, and they still use 'em!

 

I would say that... If you see some of the shocking tuning that some cars come from the factory with you would never say the manufacturers are the best.

IMHO, knock sensing is not really needed in any custom tuned engine. If the tuner sets everything to the last 1 degree of timing and the engine later experiences detonation, then the tuner has not done the full job. for applications such as street use where the fuel quality is poor (and not even consistent at that), then in most cases it is better to tune a few degrees conservative and have the motor last. 2 degrees of timing is rarely going to cost you the race.

The "not as of this moment" comment is quite right too.
Dont expect to see it on the E6K though.

 

Hitman: Do you think 2 degrees of timing is enough protection? I've heard things, seen things that are all different and I'm not really sure what I believe anymore.

 

Yeah, but manufacturers aren’t tuning for max power like modifiers are. When you tune, you don’t have to worry about meeting strict emissions regs, beating your competitor’s fuel economy, etc. This is why there’s so much scope for tuning factory systems. It’s just a case of priorities. Your customers expect you to tune for maximum (safe) power.
Maybe “best” was the wrong word, but no aftermarket tuner is going to come close to the collective experience, megadollar diagnostic equipment and long design timelines that the manufactures have!

 

Has anyone actually seen the stock mazda knock sensor do anything?? I have tested it on 3 different cars, and to get any reponse out of it, you have to pretty much drive a railway spike into housing with a sledge hammer, i've seen it retard the timing, but man, the beating it took to get anything from it was incredible, let just say by the time the ecu saw any detonation via the knock sensor, I think the rotors would have gone through the rear mufflers already..
Now if you could use a GM one from the vortec motors, that would be the one to use, you can lightly tap close to the sensor and get a fair bit of response out of it.. I wonder what the input voltage of the gm version is.. I am gonna have to check that out..Max

 

Maybe “best” was the wrong word, but no aftermarket tuner is going to come close to the collective experience, megadollar diagnostic equipment and long design timelines that the manufactures have!

Well, when you consider many of us are replacing an up to 15yr old factory ECU, you can bet the archaic factory stuff has been matched and exceeded. Look at the updates from '87-88 to '89+ factory ECUs alone...Thats my thoughts anyways!