What shoud I do to get my toyota truck (22re) to stop pinging?

Question

The truck has what appears to be a brand new fuel filter. It has a brand new distributor cap and rotor, and the plugs and wires are less than 8k miles new (though i have never checked the gaps).
The valves need adjustment, but that isn't one of my options immediately - too time consuming and/or expensive, depending on how i choose to do it. (do you think the valve clearance could be the reason it is pinging?)
Right now it pings on anything under 91 octane. i have been filling it up with chevron, shell, and 76 premium for the past 2 months. I have tried many fuel additives, including all sorts of octane boosters , and injector cleaners. Right now i'm running a tank of regular 87, to see if the pinging has stopped, but it has not. So i put a bottle of techron in, the first time i have used that treatment. Have also used lucas upper cylinder lubricant. Only thing i have not tried, is a throddle body cleaner that is fed through a vacuum line, such as chemtool's kit or seafoam. What next?

Timing is to factory spec, but others have suggested backing it off a little. Anybody have experience with this? Also the timing chain is brand new, so its not a stretch issue.
Others have suggested everything from ignition coil, to fuel filter, to just turning the stereo up and ignoring it.

The ping is very quiet. I can not hear it at all unless all windows are down and music is completely off. even having one window open is enough to totally drown it out.

Thank you for your suggestions

The engine has ~125k original miles on it, head gasket and all...no rebuild done.


Now here's my next question: where can i get a timing light for 20 bucks or less?


thanks again

Answer 1

You probably always used regular octane fuel all these years and now it is time to pay the piper. regular fuel lacks the additives found in premium fuels, so after many miles of operation, carbon builds up in the combustion chamber. When carbon develops on the vavles, this limits the amount of space in the cylinder head which increases compression. Now the higher compression runs hotter which in turn pre ignites the fuel causing "pinging" noises when you accelerate. have a thourough injection and upper induction cleaning performed on the fuel system, DO NOT USE THE FUEL ADDITIVES AS A CHEAP WAY OUT!!. This will remove the carbon on the valves, pistons, plugs and fuel system and EGR valve. One cleaned, continue to add an injector cleaner into the gas tank to keep the system clean, OR you can use a midgrade of fuel to help maintain that new engine feel.
good luck..........

Answer 2

Well its either you have alot of carbon buildup in combustion chamber or your running hot. try and get a fuel injection clean done and add a carbon cleaner to gas tank, also check your cooling system and timing if your timing is off and to far advanced you will knock and ping and as well as if your running hot i would check those things first they are the most common , it could also be that your running lean, might want to put the scope on it and check your fuel and sparks curves,........ Oh i just read the last part about your timing being in spec, yeah i would say your cheapest and best bet is to get a timing light and retard the timing a few degress to see if it stops that wont hurt engine and will be a cheap way of stopping the knock.

Answer 3

take it to a dynotune, perhaps it's the advance curve that's wrong.

If the heads were milled down during a rebuild, it might be the compression is too high.

Answer 4

22re Valve Clearance