pattersom

Checked the car for DTC's (no CE light, just checking) prior to a little road trip and decided to see how bad my timing retard is between 3.5K and 4.5K.

It's still is negative - hate this.

The blocks 020 and 021 show activity in all the cylinders making me believe (as I always have) that something is making the car believe it needs to pull the timing back. Its almost like bad gas - all the time. Even toluene doesn't help.

A few months ago I decided to not worry - but of course I had to check it out with the VAG - damn I hate this thing sometimes. Now I'm thinking about it again.

TIA.

DarinS4Turbo

AMS was all zeros through the revs... and ran actual timing in the mid-teen range at higher rpms on ~94 octane.

X had some values ranging from 1-3, and ran actual timing into the low-mid 20's. When I put in higher octane (mix to equal 97) it added a couple degrees to my actual timing (pushing into high 20's) and made blocks 020 and 021 basically zeroes with a few blips of 1.x So it all made sense.

Wish I could offer advice on your situation, assuming you are running good pump fuel I don't think it should go negative due to actual knock, I agree it must be something else. However have you tried different chips just to verify you still get the same result?

pattersom

I always figured the non-zero values were not a good sign - especially since they coincide exactly with the drop in timing.

Thing is I have checked everything I know that might effect timing - with no clear cuprits. MAF, boost, intake and coolant temp...even the knock sensors apear to be inline (per someones opinion here - forget exactly who). I have tried toluene to raise octane level - to only limited success.

I was planning on removing and reinstalling the knock sensors, paying careful attention to the install torques - maybe a cause of the problem. This is a long shot. Another possibility is busted engine mounts - but once again this should make the knock sensors go crazy. Wonder what would happen if I remvoed them...?

Another ECU would rule out the chip/ECU as the cause - but I doubt this is it. Something is telling the ECU to cut timing - what is it is beyond me.

Any idea what other sensors input ot effect timing? I have looked at every data block I can find - no luck.