MC Hammered

I went to my shop today to check up on the K04 installation.

The service manager complemented me on the seats and then proceeded to tell me he heard pinging from the engine when he drove back to the shop with the K03 installed.

Now I did hear a bit of pinging in 2nd gear bewteen 2000-2800rpm during hard acceleration. When I do a more smooth acceleration there is no pinging at all.

He told me he heard various levels of pinging in the first 3 gears and is wondering if there is too much boost being applied, incorrect timing or low octane gas. And if it pings now unless the K04 software takes care of the pinging it might get worse.

Well I run Chevron 94 so I don't know about the gas. Too much boost or bad timing? I'm not knowledgable enough to know.

I place a call to my tuner who in turn calls APR.

APR recommends that I replace the fuel filter as that is what they think is causing the problem and that I should replace it anyway if I am upgrading to their K04 solution.

I do have 48000 miles on the original filter and my service manager said it couldn't hurt to swap in a new one even though he thinks it is a bit early for a filter to fail.

So does anyone else get pinging from their K03 stage 1+?

Any thoughts on the fuel filter as the suspect?

Any tips/info an what else I can check?

I have STFA and haven't found a definite answer yet so TIA for any infomation.

Edit: I do admit that this post is done after I had the stock K03 removed and K04 installed. I'm hoping the new APR K04 software will fix the pinging issue but if it doesn't I wanted to know what else I could check.

diagnosticator1

K-03 turbo? If that's the case, the software in the ECU now, is still running a K-03, and a K-04 on K-03 boost control, will boost to much. That is most likely what is causing the ping. It will stop pinging with the K-04 specific ECU reflash.
It is possible that the fuel filter is a little more restrictive than a new one, but it would have to be restricting the flow enough that the filters internal fuel pressure regulator is maxed out, and has lost the ability to regulate fuel pressure, it's unlikely to result in a lean mixture from low fuel pressure. (Fuel pressure is controlled by shunting a variable portion of the total pumped fuel volume, from the filter outlet, back to the fuel tank.)

MC Hammered

The K04 is installed and having a new fuel filter installed as suggested by APR before I get the K04 software installed tomorrow afternoon.

My service manager at the shop I goto (not Audi) heard the engine ping and was concerned about it and thinks that the problem may get worse with the K04 solution unless APR somehow fixed the problem with the new software.

So in essence I am looking for an answer as to what happened in that past to fill my own curiosity and to determine if a new fuel fuel filter would have solved the K03 stage 1+ pinging problem or not.

That make sense?

diagnosticator1

K-04 turbo providing the boost.

MC Hammered

Original post has been edited. The pinging was with the K03 installed and APR Stage 1+ software

diagnosticator1

Disregard my earlier comments on the filter, as that is what I would first suspect also. Especially since it was the original filter element.

MC Hammered

Yes I do. AFAIK I have all the supporting HW required to optimally run stage 1+

diagnosticator1

significantly different, (K-04, + reflash,) the fact that it was pinging on the 1+ K-03, is not in a practicle way, relevent to the new setup. Changing the fuel filter is correct regardless.
Only the actual presence of pinging after the reflash, and a little time to allow adapting to fuel, vehicle configuration and local conditions, etc, is important now.

diagnosticator1

on the ko3, relating to the new setup.

MC Hammered

I am hoping the new K04 software will rid the pinging and not introduce any 'new' issues.

In any case I will be flashed tomorrow, give it a week to adapt then dyno and post up a comparative result against the k03 stage 1+ results from May.