KNOckInG!!!!! 99

[Beastin_99]

99 3.0 liter! up hill and sometimes even on the interstate it has been knocking alot!!! always at highspeeds though... never taking off or on a trail. im only 17 and i was just wondering whats going on or what i can to do get things back in order! thanks

 

[bigcountry]

knocking? like a ping or a real knock? knock is never good a ping means your octane is to low. you could need a good tune up. have you tried a higher octane fuel like 89 or 93 but im going to go with tune up new plugs and wires, try seafoam through the brake booster and some in the gas tank about half should go through the brake booster to much and it could hydro lock the motor so be careful with that

 

[Beastin_99]

its a ping.... whats this seafoam??? also ... i just installed new plugs and wires.... oh... probably 4 months ago!!!

 

[bigcountry]

ping thats better for you. seafoam is a fuel system cleaner about 8bucks around here ive had good luck with it. it will clean out the carbon in your intake and the top of your pistions and valves. so that may help but a ping normally means that you are runing to low of octane and you say its only in the high rpms that you hear it then it could possibly be it

 

[rustybolt]

I have a 99 Ranger as well. The engine will ping if moderately to heavily loaded while running on regular. The way I see it, it's a design problem by Ford. The ping is not as noticeable on the automatic tranny's but very audible on trucks with the 5sp manual. Even though the engine has a knock sensor, the system as a whole doesn't seem to work that well. Your only recourse is to run the engine on E85 or on high octane gas $$$. Way back when, there was quite a flack by Ford Ranger customers on this issue. Ford created a TSB to address the "concern". Basically, if you brought your truck into the dealer and complained about the engine ping, they would (for free) reprogram the PCM in the hopes that you will go away. The only thing the new program did was retard the timing about 3 or 5 degrees which meant the engine had no power and the gas mileage dropped considerably. I would recommend not having the PCM reprogrammed. Just run with higher octane fuel or E85 and get on with life.

 

[Toms01PSD]

Mine knocks, the SOB runs good though. Run it til it dies then put a new engine in it!

 

[fixizin]

AFAICT, *every* 1999 3.0L Vulcan is an E85 or "Flex-Fuel" engine, which means it has the highest compression (smallest chamber) heads ever installed on this mill by FoMoCo. (Edit: every 3.0 Ranger with a "V" in the VIN, that is... if there's a "U" instead, don't fill up w/ E85, lol...)

So while it may be the most ping-prone version of the Vulcan, I've got one, and the only time it has given me ping probs is when I get "bad" regular gas from a no-name station.

A tank of Premium from Sunoco or Chevron, and maybe a little "Heet" (alcohol) additive to evap any water from your tank, and "you'll be right" again.

PS: I'm *STILL* waiting to run E85 in mine, just for grins... can't find it.

 

[rustybolt]

I live in the Midwest so gas stations selling E85 are around but not many. However, when I fill up on E85 the engine goes ballistic. I think E85 has around 110 octane rating which is great for high compression engines. To bad there's less energy content in E85 when compared to regular gas. In other words, expect your range to drop by 80 or 90 miles when running on E85 which translates to higher operating costs. I have found that if you fill the tank with one part E85 and three parts regular gas, the engine wont knock (at least I can't hear it) and you'll still get fairly decent MPG.

 

[rustybolt]

BTW, Here's an article on a new E85 engine developed by MIT. They claim high efficiency with their new engine design running off E85 that is comparable to hybrids. Very cool..

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/engine.html