Evans waterless coolant

rich006 said
Well, if we want to get into the pinging issue...

The ping is under moderate to high load and higher speeds, such as on an uphill stretch of highway. I rarely drive on the highway and I don't drive aggressively, so it rarely happens unless I'm testing for it. It's been like that since I got the car 7 years ago with 79k original miles. At that point it had stock everything, with a 1bbl Holley 1945.

Last year I rebuilt the engine. Compression is about 8.9:1 static, 7.7:1 dynamic (I removed material from the block and head and had my camshaft reground to Oregon Cam 2106r specs). A few months later, I installed a Super Six intake with a new Chinese BBD replica carburetor. Every ignition component has been replaced.

Mixture: Wideband AFR reads 16-17 or higher under load with the throttle moderately open or wide open.

Cam timing: checked within 2 degrees when I rebuilt the engine. Harmonic balancer was rebuilt at the time.

Ignition Timing: I rebuilt the distributor with a heavier spring so the advance is about 21 degrees max. It likes a lot of advance at low RPM. I can get the ping to go away by retarding the initial timing, but then it feels underpowered in my normal driving conditions.

Exhaust: Shortly after getting the car, I had the exhaust pipe and muffler replaced.

Ideas welcome.

I can tell you what I did to mine. It's 7.99 dynamic. Went from RN14 to RN9 plugs. Blocked off the exhaust manifold to intake heat. Limited total timing to 33*. Replaced my craptastic auto parts store thermostat with a Stewart high flow 160. 175 PSI cranking pressure and it runs on 87 with no spark knock, no matter how hard I crowd it. That said, I'm running it on 93 now because it just runs so much better. By far, the thermostat change helped the most. That's what went ahead and eliminated it completely. So much so I was able to go back and raise initial timing back to 20 where it like it best. Through continued tuning, I learned the carburetor was lean as well and could have contributing to the issue, too. I have it pretty much right on now.