Or spark knock, something these engines are famous for.......

 

Man this is a PITA. Ok, I've got the Hughes plate on plenum w new gasket, 180 thermo, Autolite 3925's, routed spark wires with extra wire loom, new catalytic convertor, put at least 3 bottles of sea foam in brake vacuum hose and smoked up a whole neighborhood, sea foam in the fuel with 93 Octane Gasoline, and I STILL have the dang pinging. What in the world else can I do?? The only other thing i can even imagine would be to fool with the timing, but every time I put the sea foam in as directed to the vacuum hose, I get a HUGE cloud of smoke. Should I just keep doing this until no more smoke comes out after the sea foam treatment, basically indicating that there is little carbon buildup left..? One note though, is that my engine makes noise as soon as I press the gas pedal, hot or not..

 

I woulda got plugs 3923 are cooler , also ur heads may be really cracked or timing chain is to stretched .

 

yeah i meant to say 3923 plugs... , so I guess look at timing chain now?

 

If it's pinging, it can. My buddy bought a 4.0 ranger that was babied all it's life and pinged like crazy. I figured it was probably carbon build up. So after a couple Seafoam treatments the ping was gone, and it since he beats on it, it hasn't come back.

 

what grade gas are you useing try a higher octane

 

I've tried the 93 octane to no avail, also seafoam-ed the crap outta intake until NO more carbon smoke comes out of the exhaust, in other words the carbon should be mostly gone from the cylnder and valves. My only last resort would be to change the timimg chain. Is there any way to tighten it without going all the way into the front of the engine? thanks

 

Nope, only way to do anything with it is to replace it.

 

Well I am thimking now that the tick is coming from the exhaust manifold, after watching youtube vids of folks that claim to have the same problem. I guess now w anew set of headers are in the future. At least i have gotten a lotta stuff corrected in this journey to fix the "ping" so many of us have.

 

Well- I finally got my D@mn Knocking gone!!! It was the exhaust manifold gasket.. I replaced it along with RTV Silicone and grade 8 bolts. Running fine now, and NO can of freaking marbles under my hood! At least i got new plenum gasket and plate, dist cap, re-routed spark wires, upgraded wiring to o gauge on alt and grounds, and ported intake manifold and everything got a good cleaning in the process. So thankful to have that dang ping ping ping gone...I may celebrate by getting some aftermarket stainless headers, and chunk the old rusted casted heavy monsters that came on my 5.9.. So anyway that concludes my mysterious -knock, for the time being at least!! thanks to all for the suggestions! Greg