[lakerunner]

For those of you that have had some pinging on 87 octane and ended up getting a tuner: Did you try the 87 tune and notice any difference in the pinging?

I've also been wondering if and why a tuner for the frontier would have a towing weight restriction on a certain tune... I know the cortex has a 91 octane tow tune that puts more power in the lower rpm range, but does that mean if you're running the 87 performance tune and need to tow something you're going to have to change the tune back to stock or fill up with premium for the tow tune?

 

[lakerunner]

Nothing? dang... thought I'd at least get a response on the 2nd question

 

[banginstien]

Um I have never had that problem with pining. I had the Cortex in my Titan and it now sits in my 08 Frontier. It is a broad programmer that it is used on 4 diffrient vehicles. You have to pic and choose witch one works the best. I have the 91oct in mine and i like it. My new truck has a six inch lift and 34's so I like the tune it almost brings it back to stalk perfromance. About the towing thing I think it would put to much stress on the Titans transmission and rear axel. My 06 T had the older axel and if the seals broke they would replace with an 08+ assembely. The pining thing.... have heard of people runnin 91 performance with 87 oct in the tank and no ping.

 

[scuba91ta]

My truck is particularly sensitive and pings some... From what I've heard these engines are very prone to pinging....

The reason for no towing with the non towing tunes is due to the amount of timing that is in the performance tune. Because towing puts more load on the engine, there is more heat generated which can worsen pinging problem. What they do with the towing tunes is likely add a little extra fuel to richen up the mixture, and maybe pull a little timing out.

The performance tunes usually have the timing advance maxed out since this is basically how they make more power with a tuner - more timing, more fuel...

 

[banginstien]

With Superchips you have to actually set the timing seperately. Its your option to have timing advanced or not. With these modules it also messes with the transmission and the tq converter and how it gets applied in the rpm rang. Pinging can also be caused by bad fuel or a spark plug issue. My 05 frontier and my 06 titan had some pinging until I put a CAI on and helped the issue. It was not really pining just seemed like and asthsmatic having problems unitl he used an inhalier.

 

[z_frontier]

A bunch of these trucks have messed up plenum diverter valves that will rattle around 1200 rpm or so part throttle. It sounds an awful lot like spark knock/pinging.
Mine done it from day one off the dealer floor, nearly impossible to locate (took 30kmi. to figure it out) , easy enough to repair though.
Heat soak on the intake tract can make them rattle/ping hard, and the *2 advance on the BullyDog makes it far worse if you dont run good fuel.

 

[scuba91ta]

With Superchips you have to actually set the timing seperately. Its your option to have timing advanced or not. With these modules it also messes with the transmission and the tq converter and how it gets applied in the rpm rang. Pinging can also be caused by bad fuel or a spark plug issue. My 05 frontier and my 06 titan had some pinging until I put a CAI on and helped the issue. It was not really pining just seemed like and asthsmatic having problems unitl he used an inhalier.

Timing is not a seperate "setting" per say - in all but the 93 octane tunes, you can only reduce the timing by 2*. That doesn't negate the fact that SC has modified the timing across the board already by however much they wanted to at that place in the timing tables.

A bunch of these trucks have messed up plenum diverter valves that will rattle around 1200 rpm or so part throttle. It sounds an awful lot like spark knock/pinging.
Mine done it from day one off the dealer floor, nearly impossible to locate (took 30kmi. to figure it out) , easy enough to repair though.
Heat soak on the intake tract can make them rattle/ping hard, and the *2 advance on the BullyDog makes it far worse if you dont run good fuel.

The diverter valve issue is only 05's IIRC

Also, the intake plenums are plastic... not getting much heat soak out of that since plastic is a pretty good insulator compared to aluminum. Even then, heat soak is much less of an issue than you might think...

 

[lakerunner]

Thanks for the input everyone. The closest I'd probably get to towing is a load of rock in the bed for a short distance (around 2 miles) or pulling a friend out from being stuck. Guess for that little bit leaving it on the 87 performance tune would be okay.

The pinging I get sometimes is when the engine is already completely warm and it up shifts under very light acceleration into overdrive. It's so faint though if you were having a conversation or the radio was on low volume you'd probably miss it.