Dodge Durango Forum II

Re^2: Ping under load. Could it be caused by the location of the IAT sensor?

Mike Horn[RichmondVA]995.2SLT
hor08@co.henrico.va.us

I changed my oil about a month and a half ago and checked it last week and it seemed fine. I'll check it again here in a second. I had a new "rebuilt" engine (Mopar 3yr/36K warranty) installed last January due to an oil pump failure. I would hope the intake gasket would survive more than a year. The other day I removed the air cover and peered into the intake with a flashlight. It looked fairly clean but there was some black residue in areas on the bottom of the intake and my fingers had some residue from the butterfly, but I thought it was normal carbon buildup. Is that wrong? Should the intake be sparkling clean? As far as the ping, here's some info from howthingswork.com related to preignition. It seems from their explanation that if the gasket had a leak you would actually lose compression, which would prevent preignition. I do have the Autolites, Robert Shaw 180, and K&N in the OEM airbox.
From Howthingswork.com:
Higher compression ratios produce more power, up to a point. The more you compress the air/fuel mixture, however, the more likely it is to spontaneously burst into flame (before the spark plug ignites it). Higher-octane gasolines prevent this sort of early combustion. That is why high-performance cars generally need high-octane gasoline -- their engines are using higher compression ratios to get more power. Compressing air raises its temperature. However, you would like to have the coolest air possible in the cylinder because the hotter the air is, the less it will expand when combustion takes place.

Fri Feb 28