Thank you aptos!

 

that looks like the rare and difficult to find diagnostics section of the service manual! where'd you locate this?

 

It's not rare or difficult to find. It's in the Diagnostics section of the '98-'00 FSM for DTC P0325 and P0330, Knock sensor circuit malfunction.

 

you have that manual? years ago i downloaded a PDF folder of the service manual, it was largely complete except for the diagnostics section (and a few other pages here and there)

how do i access this?

 

Go here and buy either a two or thirty day subscription. Spend the time searching for your particular MY and download everything that comes up; FSM, electrical repair, collision, training, etc.

https://techinfo.toyota.com/techInfo...a.com%3A443%2F

 

Well, I don't have an oscilloscope and my ohmmeter is in the camper in storage. I do, however, have a couple ECU connector pigtails and some probably-good knock sensors.

I pulled the ECU connectors and put in the pig tails for pins 17 and 18 and put them to a single knock sensor. put the threads of the sensor to a ground under the dash. No change in how the car acted. So i put 17 back and put the ground to the W / B wire in connector 13 effectively having just one sensor. Car acted the same. so i yanked all the connectors off and ran with an open circuit. car acted the same.

When i say acted the same - car will drive around surface streets all day, even some full throttle bursts with no engine code. its not until you accelerate on a ramp to get on the freeway that it pops P0325 and P0330.

So i used the ML629 to collect some data. i put a couple data sets in a spreadsheet but haven't formatted it enough to plot a graph yet. If anyone wants an early look, let me know.

 

Your above words remind me of a carbon build up in the combustion chamber. If I were you, I'd observe the inside of it removing the spark plug. It's not expensive to buy a bore scope or a snake camera these days. Mine was less than 10 dollars to buy it.

Below is not about my Celsior and just FYI. The photo is a comparison of 2 different cars (JDM Subaru Stella and Subaru R2) that have the same engine named EN07D. Stella had the knocking problem and the cleaning cylinders using a chemical which contains PEA (Poly Ethanolamine) fixed the problem.

 

Great feedback sir. Thank you very much. Due to my struggles fixing this over many years I'm very open to new ideas like this and of course put high value on Yamae's ideas.

I do have a small scope that connects via bluetooth. But bought some Chevron Techron in the meantime. It supposedly has a lot of PEA.

 

I'll throw this out - could be wrong but . .. could a VVTi system fault cause the knock sensor code to trigger? (Valve timing is off on hard acceleration)

 

thats a good question. maybe it causes some fault electronically or it makes enough noise to trigger the sensors.

Thinking about how to test that. would have to tell the car not to engage the vvti temporarily.


Rich

 

The more I think about it the less likely the VVTi system could be the culprit. If the solenoids are not working properly a code would probably be set. Just for laughs you could pull them and make sure they are not gummed up and test them with 12V. Pretty sure the vvti solenoids would be controlled by the engine ECU. Knock is more like ignition timing issue, not valve timing issue. Forcus more on Yamae and not on my hair brained ideas.

 

I enjoy 'bench racing' all ideas. The passenger side solenoid is new. the easier-to-get-to driver side is something i can quickly check.

The PEA will arrive Friday.

 

lollll before i scrolled up enough to see your description i thought i was looking at photos of some lunar or asteroid surface XD

the Stella and R2 at the top right really sell it as some space probe photos

 

For an instant, I thought the "Stella" image was of flake smokeless powder.

 

Latest on the knock sensor CELs....
- got ten gallons with PEA additive run through so far. no changes but I'm hopeful. i dug my Bluetooth borescope out so I'll take a look ASAP
- pulled the intake for a starter swap and confirmed the knock sensor wiring. No trouble found here. Back of the intake valves aren't bad.
- My Autel ML629 will dump data for me to analyze, but its got a bunch of text and wont graph well without manual manipulation first. Going to see if there is a setting or something for it to dump simpler data. Quick look tells me it doesn't pop the code under 40 mph or under 40% load. Needs confirmed.