knock sensor relocation

[wontonjohnny]

hey tony and ratko or anyone else who knows how to do this.

how do you do this.. ahha


do you have to relocate both knock sensors?? im confused

[Eye8Pussies]

out of curiousity, why do you need to move yours?
you've got the 3vzfe.....not like us who have the messed up 1mz....?

[wontonjohnny]

wont this mod help on any engine???

[Eye8Pussies]

no.....the knock sensors are there for a reason.....to avoid your engine from being damaged when if your engine starts pinging.....as long as the knock sensors are working as intended, all is good and there's no need to move them anywhere.....

only when the knock snesors are over sensitive and starts detecting problems when there aren't none, do you have the need to relocate them........

the problem which we have is that the positioning of our knock sensors are not well designed or something, which causes the dectection of knocks when there isn't any problem at all, resulting in retarded timing, and general loss of some major power (in my case, a bit over 20hp and 20ft/lb) and the acis doesn't come on at all either.....

[wontonjohnny]

yeah that happens to me sometimes too ... when its really hot out my acis doent kick.... so im thinking i would probably gain some power with this mod....

[Eye8Pussies]

hmmm.....I see.....better get in direct contact with tony then....he's the only one who's actually done it so far....the rest of us are gonna try this summer...

[Tony the Tiger]

I wouldn't recommend anyone relocating their knock sensors on their 1MZ-FE's... Your engine will blow up if you happen to put bad gas. What I noticed though is that the newer Camry's (1997+) never had this type of problem from my observations.

However, I have some guidelines in diagnosting if you have such problem:

- if your Camry gets very sluggish between 1000-4000RPM after 2-3 consecutive full throttle pulls... the more pulls you do, the slower it gets. After about 5 mins of normal driving though, the power restores and it drives like normal.

- if your Camry runs very rich (for those who have A/F meters) between 1000-4000RPM as the car gets sluggish after 2-3 consecutive pulls. The engine also sounds like it is under a lot of load, but it isn't peppy at all.

- If your Camry peels the tires easily the first time you do a standstill pull, but then it doesn't have enough power to even chirp the tires at all after 2-3 runs. When you really start racing someone at the lights after some spirited driving, the car suddenly bogs like crazy and you end up losing to a stock Civic DX


If your Camry behaves like the above scenarios after a couple of redline pulls, perhaps you can try to relocate the knock sensors. That's what fixed my problem after nailing down all the other possibilities.

The new Nissan Sentra SpecV also has a similar problem with their knock sensors. Some of the Spec V guys there pick up about 15-17 WHP after relocating the knock sensors.

[Eye8Pussies]

^ yuppers.....that'd be me.....

[Ratko]

Also to add to what Tony said...

If this is a problem with your car, you will also notice that under hood temperatures are excessivly hot. This is because when the knock sensors behave like this, they pull timing, and retarded timing = heat. Not to mention it will cause you to run rich. And when the computer senses knock, the "bonus" performance features the engine has, like the ACIS, wont activate which can cause people to misdiagnose this issue as a malfunctioning ACIS or EGR problem.

[Tony the Tiger]

Actually, the retarded ignition timing will lead to a colder and slower burn in reality, and that's not including the over rich mixture which drops combustion temperatures by a lot. However, the engine bay does get hotter because the combustion (flame front) will be extremely close to the exhaust valves, which leads to a rise of EGT's. Higher EGT's means more heat at the headers, therefore, a much hotter engine bay. But in fact, the coolant/oil temperature, or the temperature inside the combustion chambers are lower with retarded ignition timing



Hmm. it seems like Eye8Pussies also have this problem... what year is your Camry Eye8?

[Tony the Tiger]

Here's how I discovered the problem:

You won't believe how much sh*t I have went through trying to fix this problem... A tune-up, tranny fluid, tranny coolers, torque converter, new plugs, wires, coils, cat, 02 sensors, ACIS, Throttlebody, fuel pressure regulator, etc... and the list goes on.

To tell you the truth, the reason why I rigged up a custom turbo setup is to see if it was the engine itself that caused the problem and not anything else...ROFL. After nailing down all the possibilities, I actually looked at the knock sensors.... yup, I finally found the problem. The crappy part is that the problem does not trigger any CEL/MIL, so the knock sensors were never suspicious in the first place.

I found this out not long ago... My 268WHP dyno result was with a messed up knock sensor and I had no ignition timing at all. After I fixed the problem...OMG, I felt like I gained another "turbo setup". All of a sudden, my car ran dangerously lean because the higher ignition timing pulled away all my fuel (when the ignition advances, the engine will tend to want more fuel).

Therefore, I stopped driving the car and got larger injectors immediately I felt so much power improvements that my transmission went to heaven...haha! Never got a chance to dyno the results!

[Nick]

hehe, put some washers to bring up the rear of your hood

[Eye8Pussies]

Originally posted by Tony the Tiger

Therefore, I stopped driving the car and got larger injectors immediately I felt so much power improvements that my transmission went to heaven...haha! Never got a chance to dyno the results! [/B]

wouldn't you say that it was all worth it now then?!?!


and I have the exact same car as you....EXACT.
so you be my hero...:p

[wontonjohnny]

yeah i get the same power loss ...

the car has tons of power on the first pull, usually after parking for a couple of hours ....

so how do you do this mod ... do you guys have pics??? what does the sensor look like on a 3vzfe???

[Eye8Pussies]

^ unless you know a good bit about your car and stuff, it might be easiest to go to a shop with a mechanic that you trust....

hell, I don't know what to do either, but ratko's gonna help me