Ktuner V2 CVT knock count

[Markusc]

Hey guys,

I'm not sure what's going on but I'm just a bit nervous and really hoping you can all help me out.

I've just installed the stage 2 on my CVT and it all went on fine. I then uploaded it to the car from the V2 which took about 5 minutes.

After warming up the car I took it for a test drive and within a 5 minute drive I had a knock count of 2?

I'm a complete noob when it comes to this so I have a few questions

1. What is the knock control meant to be sitting at safely?

2. Is knocking at all okay? I figured the early days of the tune may be adjusting?

One of the knocks came when I was idling and blipped the to about 2k rpm which was concerning... Any assistance or links to pages would be very helpful! (Stressing haha)

Sponsored

 

[gtman]

For the most part, don't worry about K Count. According to most experts, it's fairly meaningless on this platform. The more important number is K. Control. Lower numbers mean more potential power. As far as where K Control should be, .49 is the lowest you'll see. To achieve that you'll need to use 93+ octane. Under .59 is pretty good.

When you do WOT runs, you'll see K Control shoot up which will retard timing until it levels back down. It's there to kind of protect the engine.

 

[Markusc]

For the most part, don't worry about K Count. According to most experts, it's fairly meaningless on this platform. The more important number is K. Control. Lower numbers mean more potential power. As far as where K Control should be, .49 is the lowest you'll see. To achieve that you'll need to use 93+ octane. Under .59 is pretty good.

When you do WOT runs, you'll see K Control shoot up which will retard timing until it levels back down. It's there to kind of protect the engine.

Thanks for the reply mate. After some driving it had lowered down to a consistent 0.49 which I was really happy with.

So far, the tune has been incredibly smooth to drive, to the point I don't even realise how fast I'm going

 

[FineBottledWater]

Thanks for the reply mate. After some driving it had lowered down to a consistent 0.49 which I was really happy with.

So far, the tune has been incredibly smooth to drive, to the point I don't even realise how fast I'm going

It has been a while, but if I recalled, it takes a few minutes of driving after the flash for the K Control to drop to 0.49. As for performance, if you like the OTS map, you would love the etune from a pro.

 

[EastBayCivic]

For the most part, don't worry about K Count. According to most experts, it's fairly meaningless on this platform. The more important number is K. Control. Lower numbers mean more potential power. As far as where K Control should be, .49 is the lowest you'll see. To achieve that you'll need to use 93+ octane. Under .59 is pretty good.

When you do WOT runs, you'll see K Control shoot up which will retard timing until it levels back down. It's there to kind of protect the engine.

How high can we go on K Control before it becomes bad for the car? We only have 91 where I live and I have some hills that I have to climb on my commute. My K Control always climbs to .7 or .75 during these hills on my commute home on hot-ish days. Before and after I cross the hills I'm between 0.5-0.65.

 

[360glitch]

How high can we go on K Control before it becomes bad for the car? We only have 91 where I live and I have some hills that I have to climb on my commute. My K Control always climbs to .7 or .75 during these hills on my commute home on hot-ish days. Before and after I cross the hills I'm between 0.5-0.65.

Just make sure you are in an appropriate gear for the hills. Downshift as needed.

 

[EastBayCivic]

Just make sure you are in an appropriate gear for the hills. Downshift as needed.

CVT!

What now? This week I've been driving back and forth with my three tunes (21/18/16.5) and I didnt really see a difference between 21/18. Today is 16.5 but its cooling down a lot each day so the conditions aren't consistent.

 

[gtman]

Can you post a screenshot of the quick settings you used you used for your three on the fly tunes? Any BBG?

 

[charleswrivers]

How high can we go on K Control before it becomes bad for the car? We only have 91 where I live and I have some hills that I have to climb on my commute. My K Control always climbs to .7 or .75 during these hills on my commute home on hot-ish days. Before and after I cross the hills I'm between 0.5-0.65.

@KTuner would be the best folks to weigh in on this... I think technically as long as K.control is under 1.0 (or maybe .99 is Max), which would be 100% of the possible amount of the ignition retard to prevent knock, it is still protecting the car. Generally speaking, sticking with the basemaps and running even 87 octane, while it would provide less power because of higher k.control values, it would still provide protection. They made their basemaps very conservative to ensure that regardless of what fuel you used, your car, if it is working properly or doesn't have an overly sensitive knock sensor, you cannot max out k.control. It's providing a number that is multiplied to another value in a table to retard ignition timing. Once you reach 100%, or 1.0, it cannot retard timing further.

The only non-custom tune I've heard that changes a 91/93 octane recommended to *required* is the TSP tunes for an Si. That is based on having I'd expect so much additional timing along with higher-than-23#-basemap-boost to where you could actually max out k.control running low octane fuel.

I haven't heard if anyone calling out numbers that high being of concern... and other than a few cases where people were recommended to do some troubleshooting on their end, most people are running around bottomed out at .49 on Ktuner... will h it rising in the .5-.7 range on sustained hard driving. K.control is always inserting a ignition retard value... and dynamically raises and lowers it, to pull or advance timing to make the maximum amount of power. So long as you're not hovering well above .49 just poking around and it isn't immediately shooting up high upon any harder driving, it sounds like it's normal.

Their help page has a brief description. It's pretty forgiving.

http://www.ktuner.com/KTunerHelp/ignition_timing_and_knock_control.htm

...and yes, it takes a little while after a flash and driving afterwards for it to 'learn down'. I think I always start of .54 or .59 after a flash.

I, personally, would not be concerned seeing .7-ish in hard, sustained driving. If it jumps from .49 to .7 on short throttle stabs and has a rising trend with your foot to the floor... that might be a little much. Hot days+high load... a .7 climb that settles there sounds like it's doing it's job.

 

[KTuner]

It's irregular to see knock control that high (.9+), and you should look for possible issues or different fuel brands to use, but it's doing its job regardless what level it ends up at. It is supposed to keep ignition timing at a threshold of where there is no more noise and will vary up and down to test that point.

Where knock control becomes an issue is at a point that the system adds extra fuel to help protect things. Then you're running extremely rich and that can cause issues over time.

 

[EastBayCivic]

It's irregular to see knock control that high (.9+), and you should look for possible issues or different fuel brands to use, but it's doing its job regardless what level it ends up at. It is supposed to keep ignition timing at a threshold of where there is no more noise and will vary up and down to test that point.

Where knock control becomes an issue is at a point that the system adds extra fuel to help protect things. Then you're running extremely rich and that can cause issues over time.

Great explanation @KTuner . Luckily I haven't seen a 0.9+.

Is there a knock control value we would be able to look for to know when the extra fuel added, or is there some other parameter to watch?

 

[EastBayCivic]

Can you post a screenshot of the quick settings you used you used for your three on the fly tunes? Any BBG?

@gtman dont have my laptop right now but it's pretty much the same as what you posted on your review thread except backwards. So 1 is mild and 3 is wild. I have it this way so that it will be mild if the wife drives it when the ktuner isn't plugged in.

The only difference is that I have my medium boost set to 18 and my turbo responsiveness is set to III for all 3 tunes.

 

[EastBayCivic]

Quick update !

I have tried all the OTF tunes and have had the same results three times on that 5 mile incline.

It's probably just a combination of the load with the 91 octane because today was even colder than when I tried the 18psi. I had an IAT2 of 89F.

 

[charleswrivers]

Quick update !

I have tried all the OTF tunes and have had the same results three times on that 5 mile incline.

It's probably just a combination of the load with the 91 octane because today was even colder than when I tried the 18psi. I had an IAT2 of 89F.

If you're settling in the .7 range with the engine under decent load on incline and it's not trying to scream up past that, I wouldn't be too concerned. You still have more k.control value above that to provide an additional margin for knock protection. The fact it's repeatable shows that's just how your car reacts.

 

[KTuner]

Good point to make. Also Knock Control can get over 1.0, so the range doesn't stop there!

Sponsored