Paulg5678

Ok, so here's my story, please let someone out there have some knowledge of what the heck may be going on here as I am at my wits' end.

I have an '07 GT w/ just over 11K miles on it, and ever since it was about 4 months old I have noticed that under hard acceleration, the engine "pings" (kinda nails on a chalkboard thing), when the RPM's pass through about the 2500 mark.

Due to not having an alternate vehicle, I had to wait till about a month ago to get the car into the dealership. When I took it in, I explained what was going on to the technician guy and he said he had never heard of that issue before. After a few hours of them looking at my car and after they had taken it out for a test drive, they determined that I had gotten some bad gas and it was mixing with new gas I put in the tank and that's what was giving me the "pinging" (god i wish there was a harsher word for that sound). He recommended that I run the current tank of gas I was on(87 octane) down till it was almost bone dry and then fill up with premium(93 octane) for the next 2 tanks.

Ok, so I do as I'm advised in this case and run the car to w/in 4 miles of empty, and then pump in 2 tanks of premium over the past month, durring which time, interestingly enough, the pinging was almost entirely absent, I only really noticed it once, and that was close to 5k RPM. Then, yesterday, after the second tank of premium had just about run out, I filled up with 87 again, and just for good measure, I reset the computer and went through the manual's suggested method of letting the car idle w/ and w/o the A/c on and then driving for 10 miles to let it re-learn the fuel strategy.

Guess what, its still freakin pinging!!!!! Please let someone out there have had some experience w/ something like this in the past, or some kind of suggestion, I big of the community here.

Thanks.

SirKnightTG

Mine does it too. I notice it's worse the hotter the outside air gets. My solution (which is what Ford told me) is to run higher octane gas.

I have a 91 octane tune but run 93. I only get pinging now over 4K when the temp is 90 degrees or hotter. Otherwise it's fine.

For some reason these cars just ping. Kind of disappointing, but what can you do.

Hufenstang

pinging is a bad thing it has to do with a mix of the octane with the air to fuel ratio some how. I dont know all the specifics on it but technically pinging is knocking or detonation in the engine which is a bad thing. That is of course if we are talking about the same pinging type sound.

Was this car bought used?
Have you ever custom tuned the car?

If you really wanted to get rid of the pinging use 93 octane and/or go get it custom tuned by a good shop.

jahudso2

Try cleaning off your MAF sensor. If that doesn't work, I would run 89 or 91 octane to keep it from pinging. You must have bad gas in your location (or a bad station if you always go to the same one). Try getting gas from a different location if you always got it from the same place before. You DO NOT want to keep driving your car hard if it is pinging. The pinging noise is caused by detonation in the engine which is forcing your valves open when they should be closed. High engine speed engine knock (valve ping) can rapidly destroy an engine and should not be ignored.

SirKnightTG

I want to also mention that mine does it with the stock tune running 87 gas no matter where I get it. But mainly only when it's hot out.

9million

What an answer. Your car is tuned for 87 but their fix is to run premium? Sounds like typical BS to me. Try changing to other gas stations. If problem persists, head to your dealer & MAKE THEM fix it.

Paulg5678

Thank you all for your quick replies.

In response to the replies in order:

SirKnight: As a fellow Texan, I can appreciate the heat around here, and now that I think of it, it may only be happening on hotter days.

Hufenstang: The car was bought new and has never been custom tuned.

jahudso: What should I use to clean the MAF? And I really doubt its a bad gas issue as I've gotten gas from several Exxon, shell, valero, and chevron stations all across the north side of San Antonio and out into east texas.

So, it looks like from the above responses that running a higher octane would be my best solution. Does anyone think that getting a CAI/tune might solve this issue at all, or is a CAI pretty much pointless with this going on?

Hufenstang

if you got a cai and a custom tune it should fix it. They usually wont let you leave with your car pinging. They will probably just adjust the AFR a little bit and you should be good with no more pinging. Theres a good tuners in san antonio also, so your in luck.

Paulg5678

Excellent, thanks so much, any chance you know the names of some of the good shops in San Antonio?

Hufenstang

i think he is currently working on his website but you could give him a call and talk to him about your problem. He works on these mustangs all day so he definately knows what he is doing.

PSI Performance
WWW.PSIPERFORMANCE.NET
210-655-6546
10811 Nacogdoches Road
San Antonio Texas 78216