Sigh, pinging is back

[skullone]

I thought I had this solved last year.
But, its getting hot in Portland again, and my engine started pinging like a bastard!
Last time to fix it, I replaced the plugs, and adjusted the timing at the distributor a little bit.

But, those tricks didnt help this time
The car is lacking any acceleration now since I ****ed with the timing, but the pinging is still there, quite bad (I sound like a damn diesel from outside the car).

I heard seafoam mentioned, good and bad things. I know carbon buildup can cause higher temps/pre-ignition, so I suppose I should go that way (although I had the engine flushed at 60k miles, now at 91k)
The local autozone doesn't carry Seafoam, and had no clue what it was ... figures..

Any other suggestions? Besides running higher octance, simply cant afford it

[Project Protoge]

Sorry about him hes a bit of a grump. Instead of seafoam you can use plain old water. water works extremely well and before seafoam it was what the ford factory recomended to remove carbon build up. If possible I would run a compression check to see if it realy is carbon though. A lot of people have had trouble with week valve springs and this would show up as low compression while carbon shows up as high compression. Also if you got bad gas it could have plugged your fuel filter. Does it only happen at higher rpm's? If so it could be a spark plug wire or cap and rotor. See if you can't get us a little more information so we can rule some of these problems out.

[goldstar]

Sorry about him hes a bit of a grump.

Don't apologize for TheMAN, he's right. Double-posting clutters up the Forum unnecessarily and wastes everybody's time.

[skullone]

The double post was an accident, I put it in the 3rd gen forums by mistake.
Before TheMan even replied, i noted the mistake and asked for the thread to get deleted.
So calm down, the issue was taken care of already!

[skullone]

Sorry about him hes a bit of a grump. Instead of seafoam you can use plain old water. water works extremely well and before seafoam it was what the ford factory recomended to remove carbon build up. If possible I would run a compression check to see if it realy is carbon though. A lot of people have had trouble with week valve springs and this would show up as low compression while carbon shows up as high compression. Also if you got bad gas it could have plugged your fuel filter. Does it only happen at higher rpm's? If so it could be a spark plug wire or cap and rotor. See if you can't get us a little more information so we can rule some of these problems out.

Ill try a compression test next week, gotta borrow the tool from a friend.
And yah, it only happens under load, around 2500rpm and upwards.
Ive already replaced the plugs and wires. I might as well do the wire cap and rotor again though, Ive put a lot of miles on it since last summer.
Also, I replaced the fuel filter about 6 months ago, so its probably not that.

Im really leaning to massive carbon build up, or timing. Im going to try to mess with the timing some more, double check plug gaps and such.
Worst comes to worst, Ill have to end up buying 92 octane again, even though its a total waste for this car.

Ohhh Mazda3s, youre time is soon!

[mig360m]

The man is a asshole. I had the same problem so i fix the timing and use a 95 octane gas and it stop.

[Project Protoge]

It couldn't hurt to clean the carbon out of the engine and it is fairly easy. Get a spray bottle and fill it with water. Remove the vacuum hose that goes from the intake to the valve cover. With a good stream of water spray into the intake tube while holding the throttle slightly open. your engine will rev up and then try to die.

[Sndcastle7]

try getting gas from a different station. I used to always go to the Mobil station at the corner and never had a problem. I've had a lot of cars, and my pro doesn't seem to like that gas. it pings bad on their 87 for some reason. I stopped into the sunoco on the other corner for some reason and filled up. hasn't done it since and I've gone through 3 tanks in the last week of the sunoco gas. (I drive a lot for some reason) if you use the seafoam, be prepared for a lot of smoke, for a fair amount of time...15-20 minutes. Try switching gas stations though, it could be something that simple

[Project Protoge]

Good advice.

I had the same problem with a little gas station here and so I got gas at a chevron station down the road and got better mileage and no pinging. The water thing does help a lot though. It smooths out the idle as well. Just don't go crazy with the amount of water you use, no more than a pint or so.

[skullone]

Wow... just wow
I used some of that Seafoam this afternoon, and all I can say is thats some great stuff!
Ive never put much faith in those proclaimed engine cleaners... but this stuff truly worked.
I let the PCV valve suck about 1/3 of the can up, engine started running like ****, and started spitting white smoke out.
Let the engine sit for 5 minutes like it said to do, started it back up and drove around a while. People started giving me bad look, because I left a 5 mile long white cloud behind me, but after about 20 minutes, it stopped smoking.
The engine doesnt "sag" as much when you accelerate, absolutely no more pinging, and it feels a lot smoother throughout the revs.
That stuff actualy works as advertised, unlike many of the other additives!
And for 6 bucks, that was one of the cheapest quick fixes Ive ever used.

Thanks for the advice whoever mentioned it (i found it from a search here on clubprotege)

[skullone]

Well ****, the pinging has come back
I did another can of Seafoam, helped a bit, but it seems like a few days later, the pinging comes back as bad as it was before.
I just redid the plugs again (they got gunked from the 2 seafoam applications)
I wont do another Seafoam treatment, that stuff seems too harsh to use regularly.
I cant retard the timing anymore, either, if I do, the car will take 10 minutes to hit 45mph :|
Im actualy thinking cooling could be an issue now, the pinging simply doesnt happen on a cold engine (before it warms up).
The temp guage takes 1-3 minutes to hit the middle, and never budges past that, though. Water pump and coolant were replaced recently, and pinging was a problem before that anyways.

I can go up to 92 octane here, 95 is hard to find at most stations for some reason, but thats just hiding the problem. Luckily, Im making good progress saving up money for a Mazda3 now.