1.5T knock control significance

Another knock control thread... maybe its time someone creates a stickied knock control mega thread?

I'm wondering about how much of an issue is it for knock control readings to be in the .5-.6 range? Almost every time i get into my car, after the engine has reached its ideal operating temperature, the first boosted pull (not WOT, but anything that produces positive boost) results in a jump from .49 into the .5's.

After a little bit more driving knock control usually drops back down to .49. Is there any need for worry with this sort of behavior? I'm thinking not.

It would be nice if we could gather all of the information on knock control into a single thread that grows and accumulates information as the tuners out there make advances and learn more. Hopefully that's what this thread becomes.

Do you have a tune?

Subscribing

raynist said:

Do you have a tune?

Subscribing

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yes, custom tune from Vit.

Definitely no need to worry here.

360glitch said:

Definitely no need to worry here.

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Good to know. I'm also interested to know if knock control strategies differ between manufacturers. I would assume they do. I would even assume that knock control strategies differ between tuners (ie, a custom tune from TSP or VIT would have different knock control strategies). Mods probably also affect this.

I'm generally interested in learning more about knock control, as of right now its just some metric that i always have displayed on my ktuner and i know i want it to stay low.

teders said:

Good to know. I'm also interested to know if knock control strategies differ between manufacturers. I would assume they do. I would even assume that knock control strategies differ between tuners (ie, a custom tune from TSP or VIT would have different knock control strategies). Mods probably also affect this.

I'm generally interested in learning more about knock control, as of right now its just some metric that i always have displayed on my ktuner and i know i want it to stay low.

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Tuners are typically not adjusting the knock control strategy at all unless they alter the sensitivity of the knock control sensor. I would not expect any tuner to dare do so without having your car in front of them.

A lot is unknown about knock control, but at the end of the day it is there to protect your engine. If K. con rises due to any stimulus, the ECU is going to have the engine to take things a bit easier to prevent any possibility of damage. (less timing advance, etc)

You're fine. An increase of 0.5-1.0 isn't anything to worry about at all. If it starts creeping higher, like lets say .80-1.00 from 0.49 i'd probably pull a log and have your tuner take a peek at it.

Don't forget like others have mentioned... there are many variables that can cause kcontrol to fluctuate. Sometimes... even old or bad gas can cause it to not perform as well as we would like.

I have seen my knock control in the high .70's before but that was going pretty fast down the road

I've seen k.control going up to 1.2 on a friend's civic using stage2 and flooring it very hard on 95 RON. The engine is still running fine. I usually use stage1 and 98 RON gasoline, k.control is usually at 0.49 and if I floor it with high IAT it can jump to 0.6 0.7 0.8.. Nothing to worry about. I like to relax my foot if k.control is at 0.8.

With Ktuner, my K. Control settles at .49 in normal driving on 93 octane. But it fluctuates a bit because I live in a hilly area. After some WOT runs in warm weather, especially uphill, I've seen as high as .80...

It's all normal. When your numbers shoot up just take it easy for a while. Interestingly, on the same gas, the lowest I saw with Hondata was .54 ...

gtman said:

With Ktuner, my K. Control settles at .49 in normal driving on 93 octane. But it fluctuates a bit because I live in a hilly area. After some WOT runs in warm weather, especially uphill, I've seen as high as .80...

It's all normal. When your numbers shoot up just take it easy for a while. Interestingly, on the same gas, the lowest I saw with Hondata was .54 ...

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I think I read that hondata’s lowest level is 54 where ktuner’s lowest level is 49.

At what point should we worry? Driving today mine was at highest .8

I've been working on my MAF scale. It was sitting happy at .49 and never above .6 until my 8th tune where i made further fine tuning to the scale. Now its lowest is .64 and could go up to .70. What could be causing this? Could it be a bad batch of fuel? Running on starter dual 21 I didn't touch any thing other than MAF scale, and enabled early spool.

I flashed back to stock and it's back to .49 now.

R.Andre said:

At what point should we worry? Driving today mine was at highest .8

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did you ever find a answer?

Christianjwong said:

did you ever find a answer?

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Oh man, old thread.

This has been discussed 100's of times. Anything over 1 would be concerning. But you need to put that in perspective. Even hitting 1 doesn't 100% mean you have a mechanical issue.

For example, you may see that with a really bad batch of gas after multiple pulls. Think of knock control not just as something there protecting your engine but as a reflection of your gas quality.

Ideal on KTuner is .49 and .54 on Hondata.

Even with good gas, knock control will rise up depending on environmetal factors. For example, look at it the next time you climb a long, steep hill. It will rise. It might be higher in hot weather. But the biggest culprit is using low quality, low octane gas on a tune that demands high quality, high octane.

Now let's say someone uses high quality 93 and it's a good batch of gas. Under those circumstances, you probably shouldn't be seeing really high numbers like .8 and above.

One other point. Many tuning newbies panic if they see something like .77 on the screen. But remember, that's the ECU doing it's job. It's sensing something (bad gas, load, high temps etc.) and pulls back on timing to protect your engine. So in that way, it's a good thing.