L31 Spark retard at hi rpm & load

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NorthernTahoe

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Hi,

I was tuning my '99 Tahoe and noticed there's some knock retard at high load and high rpm.

I started with a tune with much advanced timing, and ended up retarding the timing at high rpm even compared to stock tune. It helped some, but it's still there.

A wot run regularily brings a couple of degrees knock retard when going trough second gear around 4400. Usually not in first gear. Some retard at lighter load too at same rpm, and occasionally some at other areas.

Have someone seen this? Could some kind of exhaust rattle or something like that cause it? Guess I'll just keep retarding the table and see, if it finally works...
 

Christian Steffen

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Quite possible it's noise from something else if it's happened at the same rpm but lower load. What octane fuel are you running? You can either really lower the advance and see if it goes away at the same point, or run a bunch of octane booster and keep the timing where it's at. If the knock remains agter that it's probably false and you desensitize the sensor a bit in that area, or figure out what's making the noise.
 

L31MaxExpress

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If lowering the spark advance does not help....I may have bad news having run across the same problem years ago when I still ran a 4L60/4L65E transmission. I had knock retard only after a WOT 1-2 upshift that disappeared after a 2-3 upshift and did not reappear all the way past 100 MPH. It was something in the transmission geartrain making noise. A few months after the problem appeared the transmission failed on a WOT 2-1 downshift. I am attaching screen shots of what I observed in the datalogs. What I found is if I went WOT in 2nd gear from a roll the problem never duplicated. If I made a WOT 1-2 upshift or 3-2 kickdown, knock retard like crazy at exactly 4,400 rpm, after the 2-3 shift, full timing and no issue.

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NorthernTahoe

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Thanks a lot for that information, it's very good to know! It's probably the same thing causing this. I saw a lot of retard at first gear also at 28 degrees. However going from about 23 to 17.5 didn't change anything; some KR at 2nd gear, never at 1st.

Did your transmission act up in any way? Have anyone seen this with a "healthy" transmission?
 

Supercharged111

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This happened to me as well and the only fix was to ditch the blackbox. Stock tune on 91 octane and it still knocked. Pulled timing from there and it still knocked, only 3000 RPM+ at high throttle. Swapped in a 411 and it was gone and suddenly the truck had newfound legs.
 

df2x4

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This happened to me as well and the only fix was to ditch the blackbox. Stock tune on 91 octane and it still knocked. Pulled timing from there and it still knocked, only 3000 RPM+ at high throttle. Swapped in a 411 and it was gone and suddenly the truck had newfound legs.

That makes me wonder if it could have been an issue with one of the pins in the PCM connectors. Moving the pins to new connectors might have been what solved it for you, just a random thought.
 

NorthernTahoe

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Thanks, everybody! I tuned it using 1st gear only. (Not easy to do multiple 100mph+ runs to log hi rpms at 3rd :) ) I get KR only occasionally now at 1st. I had to go very near to stock settings at high rpms. My trans is working flawlessly (knocking the wood).

I'll upgrade to 411 at some point in the future, but I can live with how it works now...
 
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