Part throttle knock is pissing me off! pls HELP

[Ryan H]

I've almost lost my patience with this car, I'm so tempted to sell it right now and get a 240sx, its just this damn part throttle knock, its ####ing pissing me off! I've posted here, dsmtalk and the yahoo phantom knock group and no one has really helped me to I'm begging for help, please!!! So heres it is, I'll try to make it simple and easy to understand.

Problem 1: While accelerating from a stop in 1st, 2nd and 3rd gear I will get knock, enough that the car will hesitated and buck a little. It started off only been periodic where now its almost constant, yet the knock varies, sometimes 43 counts, sometimes 15 counts and sometimes, yet rarely no knock. If I floor it the car while its knocking like this it boggs and the knock stays, but slowly goes down. If I floor it when there is no knock to start it pulls fine. I've noticed that the knock seems to come on from 2600-3300, after 3400rpm it looks like it drops off slowly, its generally that range that it happens.
Here are some TMO logs of what I'm talking about.
http://www.pbase.com/image/20869006
http://www.pbase.com/image/20869065

Problem 2: When crusing in 5th gear or even 4th in the 3000-3500rpm range at steady throttle out of nowhere it will knock 43 counts and hold like that until I let off the throttle or it will just drop off all by itself.
If I let off the throttle and give it throttle again the knock will climb right back up, I have to completely let off for a second or two then give it gas again and it will go away for a bit.
Here are some more logs of what problem 2 is:
http://www.pbase.com/image/20869013
http://www.pbase.com/image/20869063
http://www.pbase.com/image/20869011

What I've done to try and fix all this:
- First I played with my fuel trims, up and down, no change, right now its at 100% for all 3 trims.
- Then I got the new 3g lifters since the old ones were ticking, no change at all.
- Took EGR blockoff plate and put original one back in, still no change.
- Cleaned carbon put of combustion chamber, all clean now...no change.
- New plugs and wires
- New coil pack
- Base timing at 5*
- Knock sensor was replaced 1 month before this started
- Adjusted TH points on AFC from 30 lo 70 hi up and down and now 20 lo 60 hi and initially it helped, but then later that day got in the car and no change, still knocked.

About 3 weeks before this all started I had removed the balance shafts and filled the driver side and front motor mounts with urethane..more vibration in car now. Also replaced crank, oil pump seal, new oil pump gears and found no metal shavings in the oil pan, car still has perfect 160psi compression.
At my last oil change I did notice some fine metal flakes in the drain pan...hope its not worn rod bearings causing knock, but then again I don't hear any rod knock, just the odd injector tick.

So at this point guys I'm out of ideas and almost out of patience, so PLEASE could I get some help here, I'm desparate!!! I want my old knock free car back!!

If you wanna see what mods I have check my profile, its all there minus the B&M Command flo. If you need anymore info i will give it.

Thanks in advance

 

[Ryan H]

anyone?

 

[mhockeyjock]

Sorry Bro,

I have almost the exact same thing happening w/ my Tsi. I've been trying to fix this problem for the past couple of months and STILL no luck.... Don't you just love DSM's... Let me know if any insight is brought up, as will I.

Mark

 

[pickens]

The one thing you haven't checked is your timing belt. You said you changed alot of things that would require you to pull of the t-belt. You have to make extra sure that all the timing marks line up when you re-install it. If you have the timing off a little (even 1 lil ol tooth) on the belt, then all sorts of wierd things can happen. Usually hard cold starts, or misfires, or even intermitent knock counts. To me, it sounds like your timing is off a little which would explain why you have intermittent knocks counts between 2600rpm and 3400rpm. Let me know what happens when you check your belt.

 

[Ryan H]

I can't see how it could be the belt. I've had it off 2 teeth before and after that I make 100% sure that the marks line up. I still show good vacuum at idle 18-19 and compression is still 160, so I know its fine.
I posted this on a local dsm board and I have come to the conslusion that my problem is mechanical knock. I changed my oil yesterday, only 2000km (1250miles) since my last change and the oil had a golden brown color to it, and when I poured the oil into a container with the light shinning on it I could see a lot of metal particles in it sparkling in the light. It looked a lot like metallic paint, ya know how metallic paint has metal particles in it that sparkle ,well thats what my oil looked like. So I'm sure there is something wearing in the engine causing some noise it that 2600-3500rpm range..also right were the engine harmonics are at their highests.
I hope to rebuild the engine over the winter, i hope i can afford it.

 

[pickens]

Even though you think you are pretty sure you put it on right, I would check to make sure. Metal flakes in your oil should not be there unless your motor is really thrashed. The oil filter should catch most until it fills up w/ the metal at which point the part the metal was coming from would be pretty much useless. Perhaps you have a lot of trash in your oil pan, but I would still check you t-belt. It never hurts to make sure, even when you think you are sure. Especially when it comes to dsms.

 

[Ryan H]

The metal flakes are understandable. Its been over 1 1/2 years since I upped the boost on the car and since then I've been tuning based on EGT etc like I've been told. I finally got a logger last month and after my first 3rd gear pull I could be that I was getting 25-30 counts of knock, so with the car knocking like that for that long thats a lot of beating on the rods and bearings so that would explain the metal particles in the oil. I thought tuning without a logger was fine, boy was I wrong. The logger should be your first mod. I might still check the timing marks, but its a pain in the ass.

 

[teg21]

you can take off your knock sensor and put something else there cause if you don't you will automatically get lots of kncok since the sensor is missing.

A little dangerous but if you are sure its phantom knock and you log most of the time on big pulls you should be fine. ( I do not reccommend this for newbies or people without loggers if you break your engine doing this don't blame me, BE SMART ABOUT IT).

 

[Ryan H]

I'm not taking out the knock sensor, too many bad things will happen if I leave it out. The fact that it went from hot to cool here makes a big difference, I had to add 5% or so to my AFC hi settings cause I was running to lean with my "hot weather" settings...the result of that temp change was 13 counts of knock...again the knock sensor is staying in.

 

[teg21]

watch your timing

but also as I said its not for everyone

 

[djpast]

could have a faulty knock sensor too... you said this started happening a month after you got your new one... might as well try replacing that, you might have torqued it too hard.

 

[Ryan H]

If the knock sensor was faulty it would go off all the time or when the car is idling, etc...based on my logs and all the factors i highly doubt thats it. If it was faulty it would have malfuctioned from the start, not a month after. but if i can find my old one i might just swap it to try,better than wasting $60 on a new one.

 

[khendriksma1]

Sell, I was getting some "Phantom Knock" too on my freshly rebuilt (2000 miles ago) 6-bolt. It didn't show up until after I had about 1500 miles on the motor. I was POSITIVE it was mechanical knock because I have DSMLink and there was absolutely no indications in the logs of anything that might cause real knock. I had pretty much the same symptoms as you except that the sensor would pick up a lot of knock when I would accellerate with a cold motor. I was originally using regular Valvoline 10w-30 oil for the break-in period but then this knock problem showed up so I tried some Castrol Syntec 15w-40 Synthetic Blend. It helped a lot for the hot motor + long cruise knock but the cold motor accelleration knock was still there.

Then (here's the real kicker), I found out from the person who installed the motor for me that there are more than one threaded hole on the back of the blocks. There is one about in line with the #3 cylinder right at the top of the block and one about 1/2 of the way down the block right in line with cylinder #2. The top one is for the 1g knock sensor and the bottom one is for the 2g knock sensor. The 1g sensor is not as sensitive and so it requires being closer to the actual combustion. Once I looked, I found out my mechanic had installed my 2g sensor in the spot for the 1g. It's no wonder I had PK.

Once I moved the sensor to the lower hole, I haven't had any problems so far. You may want to try moving your sensor to the lower location. I am not sure if your 1g sensor will ever pick up any knock anymore, though. I have heard that the 1g & 2g sensors are interchangeable. Maybe the best way would be to get a 2g knock sensor and thread it into the lower hole.

Sorry this was so long. Hope it helps.

Kevin

 

[deusxmachina]

I've had a similar phantom knock problem for months now. Can easily get 20+ counts revving in neutral as well as with the clutch in, so I guess that eliminates a worn trans input shaft. Swapped in the new lifters, and the car was perfect for a week. And then over the next few days the problem came back and is now the same as it was before. Swapped in a new knock sensor with no change. For my case, I can only hope a couple of the new lifters are suddenly bad.

I wish I had some answers for you. I suppose another possibility could be motor mounts, but yours sounds like mine in that at higher revs there is no knock. Flooring it above 4k almost never has any knock, and certainly never 10 or 20 counts or more.

 

[Ryan H]

My knock sensor is in the lower hole just like its suppose to be for 1g's so I have been told. I might try moving it to see if there is a change.
But since I put in some thicker 15w50 oil the car has run much better, it still shows knock but is much less, enough that I can just ignore it. That leads me to believe that its mechanical knock from a worn engine, also metal particles in the oil too kinda proves it.b