well, may have gotten the o2 sensor issue fixed but brian also said to run premium in the rig...know i now i have a little pinging going up hills and stuff and run regular but is it really necessary to run premium? timing was checked and right on at 20deg.

well, may have gotten the o2 sensor issue fixed but brian also said to run premium in the rig...know i now i have a little pinging going up hills and stuff and run regular but is it really necessary to run premium? timing was checked and right on at 20deg.

 

Hey star,

 

What are you running for regular? 85, 87, 89? Take it up one grade and stop the ping.

 

My dailey driver will ping with 89 Sunoco. It doesn't with 92 and performs much better overall.

 

Q

umm, its whatever regular is around here in seattle

Stay away from AM/PM. The water content is higher and your gas mileage will be lower. I run Chevron or 76 EXCLUSIVELY! Try them and see if that helps but... Brian(Subaru Guru) is usually right so it pays to listen to him.

i use chevron now...shall i just go to mid and see what happens? and yep, brian is great, be sad to see them go

87 usually does fine, otherwise your vacuum advance might not be workin correctly

yeah a spfi with stock timing should run fine on 87 octane. You could have just got a bad batch of gas. Happened to me on my last road trip. (Yesterday) pinged like hell til I fueled back up with 87 octane from the same company station (different location)

Carbon bildup on the piston tops could be effectively raising your compression ratio, causing your car to ping rven when timed properly, you might try using SeaFoam or DeepCreep (availiable at Napa), this works very well for removing carbon deposits, and cleaning the fuel system in general.

umm, its whatever regular is around here in seattle

 

That appears to be 87 so...switch stations, run half 89 and 87, hell, even run some Seafoam through it, whatever it takes to get rid of the ping. It's not a good thing. Retard the timing a few if need be.

 

Page 3 of your Subaru Owner's Manual will tell you what it's designed for. I have three in front of me for EA-82 engines. '86 and '87 is designed for 90 octane or *better*. '88 is 87 octane or *better*. I know to get the most power and RPM's out of any of my EA-82's some form of premimum fuel is required. YMMV.

 

Q

Normally regular is 87, mid-range is 89, and premium is 92.

umm, its whatever regular is around here in seattle

You might try the "water trick", too. My '92 Loyale has had a ping lately when the weather warms up. I've checked the timing and everything else and was going to up the octane I use. But, yesterday I read a couple of threads that talked about running some Seafoam (which I may still do) through them to clean carbon from the piston and cylinder heads. Someone else mentioned "the water trick". This consists of inducing a small amount of water into the intake manifold while the engine is running. This of course will become steam during the combustion cycle and reportedly does a dandy job of cleaning the carbon up. They used a squirt bottle on normally aspirated models and engine vacuum on fuel injected models.

 

I tried it last night on my 92 Loyale. Made sure it was up to normal temp, used a clean pint jar with about 1/2 cup of water in it. I chose to disconnect the center hose from the top of the vapor recovery charcoal canister, it's straight manifold vacuum and the hose is long enough to reach the jar easily. I held the throttle cable with one hand, engine turning approx. 2000 rpm and put the vacuum hose in the jar with the other. It took about 10 seconds for it to empty the water from the jar. Of course, the engine chugs a bit and belches a lot of gray, dirty steam, but it seemed to work. I reconnected the vacuum line to the canister and held the throttle until the steam began to subside. Then closed the hood and took it around the block. It was too cool to really know if it made a difference last night and this morning coming to work, but it did seem to be a bit smoother. That could be wishful thinking though. ;-) The real test will be this afternoon when I head home. It's supposed to warm up to around 60f and I have a pretty good hill to go over on the way home (about 1000' in 3 miles, even steeper the other direction). Wish me luck.

This may not be something you want to do too often. I don't know what result it could have: How much water vapor does it induce into the crankcase? How much affect does the steam have on the oil film on the cylinder walls and rings, does it recover/reoil on the next stroke or take a few?

If anyone's interested, I'll keep you posted.

 

Stretch

indeed, keep me posted!

Well, the water trick didn't seem to make any difference. Although, I'm sure it cleaned some carbon out. She still pinged when the weather warmed up, and in the process I found out the EGR solenoid in my '92 has gone TU, too. Though it's failed in the open/valve on position, so I can't see where that would be contributing to the Ping. Since if it's open the EGR valve is letting exhaust gas into the intake manifold and cooling the combustion temp, correct?

 

I've been using 87 octane, so I ran her nearly out of fuel and put in 89 octane. I didn't think it would make a real difference. But, she didn't ping on the way up the hill yesterday!! I'll let ya know if there's any change.

I know for 1985 MY Soobs, the factory recommended octane is 90 or higher - I run 89 in mine, no probs whatsoever.

 

Be careful with the water trick - that steam can not only break carbon up, but also break you headgasket - had it happen to a neighbor once after he did it

Yeah, I was a bit leary of doing it, so didn't do too much. It's like water injection on aircraft engines. Increases the cylinder pressures and power output a lot!! But, there's a price to pay in life expectancy.

 

I think I'll keep using 89 for a while and see how it does and do the Seafoam treatment after payday.

 

Thanks