So I'm sure you've all heard of the famous Dodge pinging, and have heard many ask for the remedy, but I feel I possibly have a different cause to my pinging. I bought my 01 Sport ORE with the beefy 5.9 about 3 years ago now and it never pinged. It did however have 2 stored codes that I have just ignored because I didn't notice any issues driving it. The CEL would sometimes come on at random at startups stay on for awhile (hours, days) then go away for days sometimes weeks. They were p0443 Evap purge solonoid and the other for a bank l sensor 2 high voltage. Now like I said they truck never pinged before, and just recently this past Spring I noticed when I accelerated up a hill in overdrive she pinged for the first time. I immediately started to run only 89 grade and ended up changing the plugs to a cooler temp NGKs (can't remember the number but 1 or 2 temps below factory) as well as 8.5mm summit wires. That seemed to cure the pinging all summer and well now it's back but only in the high rpm if I get on it. Gas milage has slowly fallen also, from 12.5 town to 10.5-11.3 town. It does sometimes have a flutter in od when I'm crusing and give it some throttle. My question is, could an o2 sensor reading a high voltage leaning out my engine and causing it to ping during heavy throttle? They are both original to the truck as far as I know and I am just over 104k. Any thoughts?

 

Sensor 2 is just to monitor cat efficiency. I don't think it has any real affect on mixture ratio. (but, I have been wrong before......)

I would take a good hard look inside the intake, and see if the plenum is blown out. That's generally a VERY good cause of spark knock.

If that looks ok, I would unplug the front O2 sensor, and see if the problem goes away. If it does, replace the sensor.

 

Yeah the plenum has crossed my mind before as well. Took a look down in there today and saw just oily film inside from PCV vapor, nothing pooled up that I could see. And my oil consumption hasn't worsened. Every 2nd gen I've owned has always consumed about 1/2 to 3/4 quart between a 3000 mile oil change. I have ordered NGK O2 sensors and will be here tomorrow. Took a look at the downstream one and it looks pretty filthy. We will see. But I have a feeling that sooner or later the plenum will be causing (if not already) issues and I will need to take on that project. I'll keep posted how it runs once I install the new sensors tomorrow.

 

Quick update: I decided to unplug the downstream sensor and take the truck for a spin to get it up to temperature then romp on it a couple times. It actually ran a little smoother and also I didn't hear any pinging. Could be coincidental, or could not. Gonna leave it unplugged until the sensor comes in and see how she runs. Obviously it's in default mode now (open loop) so probably see a little more fuel consumption. I'll keep updated once I install the new sensor.