Knock Sensor Location

[Jordanbutter]

Ok so I searched, checked the FAQ forum and still can't find the answer. Where is the knock sensor and what do I have to do to check/replace it?

 

[Gunter]

Ok well the knock sensor is in the engine block under the intake manifold, you'll see a single wire coming out, its quite small. So what you have to do once you find it, i don't have any pictures i'm sorry, but you'll have to remove the intake manifold stay and then disconnect the connector from the knock sensor and unscrew it from the block. When you reinstall it you'll want to torque around 15 or 16.

 

[Jordanbutter]

Is there anyway to do it without removing the Intake Manifold?

 

[Gunter]

you won't have to remove the intake manifold, just the stay which is a peice running just under the intake manifold where it curves upwards and it is bolted with 2 bolts to the intake manifold and one to the block if i remember properly.

 

[ReebisTSI]

you won't have to remove the intake manifold, just the stay which is a peice running just under the intake manifold where it curves upwards and it is bolted with 2 bolts to the intake manifold and one to the block if i remember properly.

^what he said

 

[Jordanbutter]

Ok now I will say I do have an SAFCII. I didn't put it in so would that, most likely, make this process harder.

 

[Gunter]

Ok now I will say I do have an SAFCII. I didn't put it in so would that, most likely, make this process harder.

I'm confused by this, maybe i'm not reading it properly, you didn't put your SAFCII in yet? Either way, whether its in or not, shouldn't interfere at all with taking out/replacing the knock sensor since the SAFC just connects to the ECU anyways? Maybe i misunderstood

 

[Jordanbutter]

Its installed but I didn't put it in so I wasn't sure if it was rerouted.

 

[Booster-Shot]

knock sensor=death.

 

[Newlogics]

You DO NOT need to remove intake manifold or the brace.
Removing starter will give you a bit more wiggle room (but not required), to get your hand down there to remove the sensor. Batter will need to come out as well, to get access to that area.

knock sensor should be a little more then hand-tight. About 4-5 ft-lb. Otherwise becomes overly sensitive.

Most importantly, why do you think you need to replace it? '98 car should not have any problems with knock sensor yet. (beside the fact that 2G knock sensors are sealed, don't leak and don't present NEARLY as many issues as 1G sensors). And what the hell does SAFC have to do with anything here?

 

[Jordanbutter]

Well the whole thing is my SAFC has been reading a ton of knock(usually 20-60), the way it is acting I'm sure its mostly PK or Lifter Tick.

 

[Newlogics]

Well the whole thing is my SAFC has been reading a ton of knock(usually 20-60), the way it is acting I'm sure its mostly PK or Lifter Tick.

First of all, SAFCII sucks at reading knock. I was comparing knock readings on SAFC with readout ona logger (on a 1G though), and they don't seem to me correlated at all.

Do you actually feel power loss?

What rpm/throttle are you seeing knock at?

 

[Jordanbutter]

See thats why I think its PK because none is at 100% throtle and between 3000-5000, it's mostly during engine deceleration. Also it will read counts of knock in idle, it will count up usually to 20 or 25 and then go back down, but this is over a long time. However I did get 134 and 116 counts the other day which really scared me!

 

[travislaw]

Jordan,
You don't have to worry about the SAFC-II when replacing the knock sensor. When the SAFC-II was installed, the wires should have been tapped in right next to the ECU. So jack the front of your car up and put it on stands. Crawl under the car and go to the back of the engine where the engine is by the firewall. Undo the 3 bolts for the intake holding brace. Bingo, there is your knock sensor. Unscrew, unplug it, pull it out. Put the new one it. Don't over tighten it or your will mess up the sensor. I used a little thread lock and tightened it down. Plug the new one. Put the intake brace back on and make sure you use lock tight on those bolts or you will loose them and your done. I just did this 2 weeks ago. Took 10 minutes. The stealership wanted to charge me $380 to do it and said there was all this crap that had to be removed.

 

[Newlogics]

Jordan,
You don't have to worry about the SAFC-II when replacing the knock sensor. When the SAFC-II was installed, the wires should have been tapped in right next to the ECU. So jack the front of your car up and put it on stands. Crawl under the car and go to the back of the engine where the engine is by the firewall. Undo the 3 bolts for the intake holding brace. Bingo, there is your knock sensor. Unscrew, unplug it, pull it out. Put the new one it. Don't over tighten it or your will mess up the sensor. I used a little thread lock and tightened it down. Plug the new one. Put the intake brace back on and make sure you use lock tight on those bolts or you will loose them and your done. I just did this 2 weeks ago. Took 10 minutes. The stealership wanted to charge me $380 to do it and said there was all this crap that had to be removed.

It's only that simple on a FWD. On AWD you can hardly get there from the bottom.

Somehow, I don't think it's Knocksensor that's causing problems, unless it's simply loose.

First, I'd make sure that SAFC knock wire is tapped into correct location. ECU simply won't report knock at idle. If you're seeing it, it means SAFC is getting the reading somewhere else.

Do you feel drivability issues? You should feel huge power loss from timing being pulled back, if you don't, then it's not knock SAFC is readying, it's something else (depending where it's tapped at)

 

[Spooling99]

I thought that 43 counts was the highest count of knock your ECU could read?

 

[Jordanbutter]

Yeah I saw 165 counts today which is BS even I know that. I'm takin it in to have a once over in a few days so I'll see if they can find anything. Either its loose, not tapped correctly, or my cars gonna explode and I hope its one of the first options.

 

[steve]

What the SAFC displays as "knock" has a lot to do with how you train it at the beginning.
I thought the feature was so useful that I capped off the wire with heatshrink and ziptied it out of the way.

Steve

 

[GSTBlack95]

My SAFC-II is reading 250-350 counts of knock, which is alot of bs.