Extremely High Knock Control on Stage 2 Dual W/ 94 octane?!? Unsafe? [HB Sport Touring CVT]

New to tuning.

I've done a bunch of reading here and there. Today I plugged in my ktuner to play around with the quick adjustments/settings. I noticed that my knock control was at 1.04! I have always been running 94 octane since I tuned the car.

I flashed the car back to the Stage 2 Dual Calibration to be safe and went for a quick drive recording a data-log. Results show 0.83 with highs of 0.89 knock control;I was pushing the car decently hard. I was under the impression using ktuner was relatively safe... Should I be concerned? Also shows misfired cyl on 1, 3, and 4.

If someone can please educate me on this, I'm concerned this is not safe for the car.

Edit: I've never brake boosted or "launched" the car.

Car is basically stock performance parts wise.
2018 HB Sport Touring CVT
Using Stage 2 Dual Calibration Base Tune

does driving it normally without going WOT go back down to .59?

dc2turbo said:

does driving it normally without going WOT go back down to .59?

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I'll take it out for another drive later today and drive more conservative. When I first did the tune a while ago it would linger around high 0.60~0.69.

vancitysfinest said:

I'll take it out for another drive later today and drive more conservative. When I first did the tune a while ago it would linger around high 0.60~0.69.

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Drive under light load for 15-20 minutes (e.g. medium acceleration) and it should drop below 60 (the minimum is .49)
Once it is below 60 do a pull in 3rd gear from ~2000rpm until redline and see how much it rises. Repeat one or two times and also monitor your iat and iat2 as knock control tends to increase quickly under heat soak during repeated beating

varge said:

Drive under light load for 15-20 minutes (e.g. medium acceleration) and it should drop below 60 (the minimum is .49)
Once it is below 60 do a pull in 3rd gear from ~2000rpm until redline and see how much it rises. Repeat one or two times and also monitor your iat and iat2 as knock control tends to increase quickly under heat soak during repeated beating

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Thanks for the help. I'll do exactly that. Looking back at the data-log IAT would hover around 98-107 and IAT2 would be around 87-93. What would be considered safe temp for these? Currently around 18C (64.4F) where I am.

If your iat2 max is at the end of a pull it seems decent for your ambient temperature. Rising up to +20C from ambient should be normal under hard driving (especially 4th gear pulls)

sounds high.
2 possibilities i can think of.
1. over sensitive knock sensor which some others have noticed.
2. sumptins messed up!

drive carefully till you figure it out. tsp1 on map 3 using 91 octane and i have never seens that high even on track days with similar iat.

varge said:

Drive under light load for 15-20 minutes (e.g. medium acceleration) and it should drop below 60 (the minimum is .49)
Once it is below 60 do a pull in 3rd gear from ~2000rpm until redline and see how much it rises. Repeat one or two times and also monitor your iat and iat2 as knock control tends to increase quickly under heat soak during repeated beating

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So I went for another drive and I got my knock control down to 0.48 within 5 minutes of driving on the highway at 1500-2000 RPM. Did a WOT pull from 2000RPM to 6000RPM and knock control went back up to 1.09 with 96 IAT(F). Drove again normally back down to 0.51 and did another pull @ 2000RPM and went straight back up to 1.07.

What the hell is going on? Is this normal, should I be concerned? What's the point in having a base tune if you can't safely use it?

caspar21 said:

sounds high.
2 possibilities i can think of.
1. over sensitive knock sensor which some others have noticed.
2. sumptins messed up!

drive carefully till you figure it out. tsp1 on map 3 using 91 octane and i have never seens that high even on track days with similar iat.

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I guess your lucky you can track your car. At this rate I don't even think its safe for me to go over 3000RPM...

K. Control will rise noticeable with multiple WOT runs. It's there to protect the engine although 1.0+ is a bit high on 94 octane. It's possible it's a bad batch of gas.

gtman said:

K. Control will rise noticeable with multiple WOT runs. It's there to protect the engine although 1.0+ is a bit high on 94 octane. It's possible it's a bad batch of gas.

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I hit 1.09 on my first run. I'm hoping it's a bad batch of gas as it is 94 from chevron. Are there any settings in Ktuner I should be looking at that might help? I guess the only thing to try now is fill up 94 from a different chevron near by (94 is only available via Chevron where I'm at). If that doesn't help, then I guess I'll have to get rid of Ktuner as it's unsafe.

vancitysfinest said:

I guess the only thing to try now is fill up 94 from a different chevron near by (94 is only available via Chevron where I'm at). If that doesn't help, then I guess I'll have to get rid of Ktuner as it's unsafe.

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Using KTuner's base maps and all the quick adjustments have proven safe over time. Keep something in mind. High K. Control numbers are the opposite of unsafe. The ECU is pulling timing. It's actually a safety feature so to speak. The problem of course is high K. Control also means less power.

At one point my K.Control was spiking as high as .95+ on WOT runs on 93 octane. I switched gas stations and my numbers at WOT came down and have been fine since. Obviously my issue was a bad batch of gas and hopefully, your issue as well.

gtman said:

Using Ktuner's base maps and all the quick adjustments have proven safe over time. Keep something in mind. High K. Control numbers are the opposite of unsafe. The ECU is pulling timing. It's actually a safety feature so to speak. The problem of course is high K. Control also means less power.

At one point my K.Control spiked as high as .9 on one WOT run on 93 octane. I switched gas stations and my numbers at WOT came down and been fine since. Obviously my issue was a bad batch of gas and hopefully, your issue as well.

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Thank you for your input, that is relieving to hear. I will fill up at a new station tonight and do another test run. I was under the assumption that having a high knock control was some-what dangerous. Just to clarify, having a high knock control is okay as in it won't have any detrimental/negative effects on the engine or any other components?

vancitysfinest said:

I was under the assumption that having a high knock control was some-what dangerous. Just to clarify, having a high knock control is okay as in it won't have any detrimental/negative effects on the engine or any other components?

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I wonder if you're confusing knock control with actual engine knock (which does harm).

No harm from high K. Control other than less power while it spikes due to pulled timing. If gas from a different station doesn't help, could you try a different brand? If all else fails contact KTuner customer service.

Last but not least keep in mind that K. Control will rise due to heavy throttle input, load, steep hills, high temps, etcetera. All normal. But 1.09 is a rather high spike.

gtman said:

No harm from high K. Control other than less power while it spikes due to pulled timing. If gas from a different station doesn't help, could you try a different brand? If all else fails contact KTuner customer service.

BTW, I wonder if you're confusing knock control with actual engine knock maybe.

Last but not least keep in mind that K. Control will rise due to heavy throttle input, load, steep hills, high temps, etcetera. All normal. But 1.09 is rather high.

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Thanks again for educating me lol. I'll try another batch tonight from a different station, if that doesn't work then I'll try another brand. And you're right, I was getting mixed up with engine knock and knock control .

One more question aside from this topic. On my CVT, is it safe to enable/increase the Boost Target Ramp Rate? Probably set it to Improved II?

Thanks again for your valuable input.