Pinking conclusion??

Listen to Dave, he's a very intelligent bloke and knows all there is to know about engines! One look at his site will confirm this. It may be basic to look at but its the content that matter - a very interesting read! I'm not pretending i know that much about pinking (i drive a diesel so its a way of life :)), but i've never heard the description Steve gave in his post (before all the arueing started).

Indeed. There's a lot of rubbish being talked about the subject but I believe a lot of it boils down to how you define pinking. As far as I'm concerned, it's caused by pockets of fuel combusting early, before the flame front gets there (it's best to think of a spark plug ignition creating a flame front moving in a wave motion rather than the more simple 'explosion' happening in the engine - you don't want it explode!). There can be a number of different reasons for this happening and also different things which sound like pinking. Of course, if you define pinking as something different to this (I always used to get confused with pre- and post-ignition). To me, pinking is a funny thing to call anything anyway and it seems to me like people use it as a rather vague description of 'something rattling in the engine'. Whatever, Dave Baker has been posting on various automotive newsgroups for years now and I've never had reason to call into doubt anything he says - I think I may have had one of my posts called into doubt by him a few years ago and found him to be absolutely correct on the subject... I think it had something to do with optimum gear-change points and torque vs. BHP - a flame war which waged for a long time until Dave posted his definitive conclusions on the subject. If I could afford it, I'd send my XU engine down to him in a flash ;)

Chris.

Hi Chris how is your 305 these days though i dont drive it as much anymore :-( mine is still pinking.....

Grrzz

Marc