Pinking...........

[Lawress]

My 1994 V6 lump is pinking badly. Under stress it's bad but I can make it 'tinkle' on a flat road with minimal effort. Petrol consumption is also highish - 20 mpg round town (24mpg or so is the stated figure from the manual) and 28 on a run. Typical advanced timing.

Is there any way to adjust the electronic ignition?

[Stupink]

Ajusted automatically by the ECU only as far as i know the same as the other models.
20mpg isn't high if manual states 24.. they're ideal figures you'll never achieve in real life under normal cercomstances.

[kev208]

i only get about 25 to the gallen in my 8v. v6 would use loads more i would have thought with it being a bigger engine.

[hoglabs]

25 mpg is normal for a mix of urban and m'way driving in the V6.
As mentioned already there is no way to adjust the tuning, the ECU handles this.
It may be showing signs of being tired - give it a good service
Some of the engine sensor inputs may be out - check for stored fault codes
When was the last time the lambda/oxygen sensor was changed ?

[dazjb]

As said above, the mpg might not be too bad for the V6. The pinking though shouldnt be happening ... on older cars you could advance/retard the timing but on these cars the ECU does that for you. Get it serviced with new spark plugs, air filter, etc. (could the HT leads do with renewing?) and throw in some good quality fuel system cleaner. Whilst your giving it the once over you might as well treat it to an oil change and new fuel filter as well.

[King Calibra]

<!--QuoteBegin-hoglabs+--><div class='quotetop'>(hoglabs)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->When was the last time the lambda/oxygen sensor was changed ?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

You mean the lambda won't trip a check engine light when it goes bad? Is the MAF sensor the same way?

[hoglabs]

Depends how fast it 'dies'.
The lambda sensors' response degrades with age/mileage.
It becomes slow to respond to the actual air/fuel ratio in the exhaust.
The ECU has a wide tolerance level on the lambda signal in and this has to be exceeded before a fault code occurs. Anyone with an in car air/fuel ratio meter will appreciate how much this signal can bounce up and down under normal conditions.
If the ECU doesn't have an acurate idea of what's going on in the exhaust then it's going to have a harder job auto tuning - well you'll get worse mpg for sure.

The same goes for the Air Flow Meter (MAF) but these do usually cause fault codes when they start to go... just not always AFM ones.

[King Calibra]

so changing the lambda on a car with 130,000 on the clock wouldn't be a bad idea then?