I've been advancing my timing and listening for a ping.
i just went out and when I got on the gas there was kind of a high pitched whistle. I backed off the gas and it went away. Is that what a ping sounds like or is it more likely an intake leak or something?
Pinging should sound like shaking a coffee can full of marbles from what I've heard of it. Some aftermarket throttle bodies are notorious for whistling, although I'm not sure which make the list of noisy ones. My PP throttle body is ok from what I've noticed, but I don't know if I'd hear it over the slight header leak and flowmasters... lol
I'd have to agree. Though I'd sure hate to lead you astray in case it is pinging, it does not sound like you heard pinging. In this case, pinging would be detonation, and it's not constant nor does it have a recursive, precise cadence (just like with Matt's marbles in a jar analogy, if you shake a jar like that, the noise will always be similar but not the same with every shake).
Detonation can sound a lot like lugging, if you've heard that.
Thanks for the great descriptions guys, dealing with sounds can be rough when translating into words. I guess I just ran into a wicked coincidence that the sound came up while adjusting the timing.
I would say detonation sounds like a 2 stroke bike if youve ever heard one of those. its kinda like a banging on metal kind of noise. You will deffinatly know it when you hear it..
As far as the whistle, A lot of throttle bodies make that noise under partial aceleration. It could also be a mis match in sizes between the t/b and intake, or somethign like that. Either way, whistling is not detonation.