Checking in from CA

[Jackpine]

Welcome, Sburn! I liked that "noise" comment from the right seat!

But, I think you may be cheating yourself and really horrifying your Scottish ancestors too, with your Level 3 settings. If I'm not totally out to lunch, the canned Level 3 is for 91+ octane (I read that as 91 or better), which means it should be good to go on the gas you have, no reduction in timing needed.

And, even if it does need a reduction in timing, the manual recommends only 0.5 degrees for each octane point, so 93 down to 91 should only require a 1 degree reduction.

I'm very interested in the timing, due to my experiences with a 94 Toyota pickup. From the day I bought it (new), it pinged a bit under load, or even at cruise in our hot summer months. I told the dealer about it and they dialed the timing back (I forgot how much). It ran like a very sick dog - but didn't ping. I couldn't stand that, so I reset the timing back to spec and once again it pinged but ran just fine. So, I reduced the timing by the smallest amount I could measure (this was the days of distributors, of course and I was changing the static timing). Again, it ran like a dog. I finally put it back to spec, lived with the ping and sold it at 104K having suffered no problems.

So anyway, I'd try resetting the spark change to 0 and see how it drives.

- Jack