I have a 2000 trans am 6 speed . Ever since I bought it the motor does not smooth all the time. Lately the car pings at wot and I see allot of some type of smoke in my mirror. Replaced the plug, plug wires and fuel filter. I have no check engine lights or codes that the dealer could find.
Do you think I need to buy hp tuners program and try to tune this thing????? Maybe, well I don't know this pinging just robs me of HP I'm sure.

 

hmmm... it does sound like an a/f trouble.
i would always say hp tuners/ls1edit is a good thing to have

sounds like your going lean at your upper rpms. best way to find out is strap it to a dyno with wideband... find out for sure. then you will know if you need a tune..

 

How about a air/ fuel gauge I can mount in the car???? Would it sensitive enough?

 

If you got AutoTap or know a friend who has one, you can hook it up to your PCM and see what your 02's are reading or if you are getting any mis-fires

 

I just had my car gone through for smimilar reasons. The pinging and smoke. The smoke turned out to be a head gasket or intake manifold coolant. Does the pinging at WOT sound almost like sombody threw a handfull of sand into the engine, and you hear it bouncing all over the place? I had that problem too, and one of the guys on site told me that was what detonation sounded like. Higher octane fuel should be the cure for that. Good luck either way.

 

I sure hope their is no internal engine problems. I always put in 91 octane.

 

91 octane is a bit lame and I think the 2000s were
the most ping-sensitive of the 4th-gens.

Black smoke is mixture, blue smoke is oil, white
smoke is coolant. Pray for black

No funny stuff like timing trickers, ported MAF,
that kind of thing, right? Did you have this car
from new, or was it potentially molested
(physically or mentally) as a child?

 

Too bad it's the best we can get out here in Cali. It's okay though, the extra dollar tax the state puts on each gallon makes it worth it.

 

well dude if you have no headers on then i don't see why the car would be running rich, as far as the pinging and smoke,dyno the car a look at your a/f ration, first thing you must do. then take it from there. i had a similar problem my car would ping like crasy right before wot then at wot it would smoke. it turns out that one of the valve seats was sticking out just a bit actually it was sticking out like a quater of an inch. so if better fuel and tunning don't make the problem go away you'll have to open up the engine man.

 

maybe clean the mass air sensor with electronics cleaner and reset pcm?

 

Thanks for all the info. I have reset the pcm many times and spayed cleaner in the mass air flow sensor. I bought the car used so It had bad pinging problems when I drove it home from texas (only can buy 89 octane) got alot better when I put 91 and some times 92 octane if avaliable. Basicaly just borla exhaust and a lid are the only mods. Ya, a dyno run and a wide band 02 would be the best thing to do. If Ihave to spend the money on a dyno run how about spend the money instead on a air/fuel gauge to mount in the car?? Would I get enough sensitivity to see if the car is lean???

 

dude just go get a dyno done for 75 bucks and that will tell you your a/f ratio, and then take it from there.

 

i dunno how good they are for the LS1, but i have an A/F digital guage on my Mustang and it's just nice to look at and not very accurate.

how about try some good fuel cleaner (like the $20 can from the dealer)...maybe you have some carbon buildup from the PCV valve sucking oil into the intake?

longshot, but maybe you've got some kind of performance programming on their from HPP3 or something, that the previous owner didn't know or didn't tell you about.

 

Another idea is to get some octane booster for the gas and see if will help the pinging. What do you think???

 

The comment about having a HPP3 "residue" in there
is what I meant about being molested mentally. If
your MAF appears stock, then you might want to
just roll up to a dealership, complain about pinging
and get them to reflash your PCM appropriately.
This should be a one-hour shop rates charge (that
may be more than the $75 mentioned). GM has some
PCM updates listed for pinging complaints, I recall
seeing somewhere (like maybe AllDataDIY?).

-If- the engine and software are both unmolested
then you could consider a top end clean, one time,
see if that (removing any manifold oil residue) helps.
If that doesn't do it then I think you want a tune
to put fuel proper, possibly pull out some timing.
By the time you jump through all of these hoops
you may have dumped enough cash that you could've
bought tuning capability for yourself, have to weigh
all that in your mind before you spend much more.

Also might shout out in the Southern forum and see
what kind of tunin' 'billies are in your neck of the
Arkansas woods.

 

It is cooler today about 75 low humidity. The runs alot better today. Pinging happened when the temp outside was 98 and high humidity. Also added 2 octane buster bottles. So, I guess the tune might be a little off. I think (jimmyblue) is right. The car might be tunned for higher octane gas.
Thanks for all the info!

 

A/F gauge will not tell you anything unless your running wide-band 02's. That is why you should have it dyno'ed where they will most likely have a wide-band 02 sensor to sniff the exhaust. There are a lot of things that could cause this...bad MAF, aftermkt MAF, what did you clean it with...ELECTRONICS cleaner- if not could be a problem. Also are you using a K&N? Stock plugs are known for this too. A custom tune would probably help and give you some nice power gains too.

 

The pinging could be caused by carbon buildup in the combustion chamber too. You might want to run some seafoam in there and give it a thorough cleaning.

 

im thinken along the same lines as him..my LT1 and i seafoamed..and man did it help

 

Seafoam? Do you buy seafoam at a autoparts store? How do I use it??