All,

I have done some research on the topic of pinging. It seems like a few others have had similar issues. I followed one of the advice given here about putting seafoam into the intake via a vacuum line which I did and it made my acceleration and idle noticeably smoother, but my pinging is still there.

What I mean by pinging is the noise it makes while I am in a slightly uphill climb in 3rd, 4th, and even in 2nd gear sometimes (I have an MT).

I have read that retarding the timing just a bit might help. My questions are as follows:

1. Is it normal for a car like my 98 LX to require adjustment in my timing via the distributor? In other words, does timing get off on its own.

2. Can I simply move the distributor back a bit without the use of a timing gun or is that committing a cardinal rule?

I have had no issues of bogging or loss of power which might indicate the timing belt is off a tooth or so.

I have never done any timing corrections, so please bear with me here.

Thanks.

 

1: yes because the belt wears and stretches.
2: you can just try to adj, but a light makes it perfect.
also have you tried using a higher grade gas.
and/or a octane booster additive.

 

regarding #2; yes I have; to no significant effect.

 

Did you check for exhaust leaks? Exhaust leaks sometimes sounds like pinging especially with my bad hearing. Inspect the exhaust manifold under the heat shield.

 

will do gwl.

 

to bring this post to closure, I ended up adjusting the timing by trial and error. Now I have no more pinging as before.