While driving to San Diego from Phoenix(and Back) I noticed that while driving on a (relatively) flat stretch of highway my car would experience this "cruising" at 75-85 mph. Now the kicker....it wasn't a "consistent" occurance, I mean it would ping "irratically" and even at different sound levels. I also got on it hard on an on ramp to see if it'd knock bad, and it did. In second gear at about 6k it was REALLY loud and sounded bad. My temp gauge stayed at it's normal position, and the outside temps were anywhere from 88-105. Anyone else experience this? I normally drive my car "hard" so going by what a lot of rotary people say I should have no carbon built up.

 

How many miles? Auto or manual?

 

Manual w/19,000 miles running 91 octane, royal purple 5w30.

 

How old are the plugs. If they're the original ones it's time to change. If that doesn't help the coils may be bad.

 

have you had this done..

http://www.finishlineperformance.com...ecall4206F.pdf

it is a start if not..

beers

 

Change original Iridium plugs at 19,000? joke?

Yes I have had the emission's recall test done, and I "supposably" passed.

 

it's quite easy to toast a set of iridium plugs in less then 25K. I'll gladly post pics of mine @ 22,000 if you like.

 

Mine did the exact same thing, on the exact same route in Feb 2006. I drove to Yuma, took care of business, filled up with gas and jumped back on the 8. Got on it on the on-ramp and pinged like crazy. Backed off and the pinging would come and go around 4 grand.

As you know, there is nothing between Yuma and SD, so I kept on going. I was worried that as I climbed the mountains into SD county, it would ping hard, but it didn't. Decided to see if I could reproduced it so I took Sunrise highway into northern SD. By the time I got to the top of the mountain, pinging stopped. I drove it hard 6-8K on Sunrise Highway and no pinging at all.

I've never had a reoccurance since. I've upgraded to premium and run it harder now than I did in 2006. Milage did not really suffer either.

I have an '04 with 28k miles, 6spd MT. All flashes/TSB's up to date.

Mike

 

bad tank of gas maybe?

 

Possibility, but it occured after I topped off at Love's in Gila Bend, with 13gallons of "other" gas, and 10gallons of Costco gas....All of it was 91 octane. And on my way over I either filled with Circle K or Quick Trip.