MSD Knock Alert (http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?part=MSD%2D8964)

Anybody ever used this product? With my high cylinder pressure, I thought it would be helpful to have this to determine if I'm running enough octane. I'm paranoid about detonation.

What do you guys think?

Nice car, where did you find the distributor machine, I've been kinda looking for one for a while.

I tried one, doesn't work very well. I borrowed one to test, and installed it on a car with a factory knock detector, then drove around with a scantool hooked up to watch the factory ECM for knock counts. The factory ECM picked up knock long before the MSD unit did.

This unit however works very well, several of my friends use them with great success:

http://www.jandssafeguard.com/

It will cost more than the MSD though, but rather than just warning you and letting you correct the problem (backing out of it) this unit will retard the timing for you.

Troy

That unit DOES look interesting, but on an older motor where does this... "sensor" go? The only thing that looks to be a drawback on that system is the price... $450-495...

Thanks for the compliment, Marty. I got the distributor machine from Central Washington University (where I went to school). It was in pieces, but I put it back together, cleaned it up, and it's one of the best tools I have.

To answer the question on where the sensor goes, it would simply screw into the water pipe tap on the side of the block.

I'm dissapointed to hear it didn't work well. Did you try to tune it? I wonder if it had something to do with using a different knock sensor. Although, the one that is included is very common with late model small blocks (a la 1996 or so).

I know that many dyno places use that J&S unit, but it is very expensive. Something I can't afford. It bugs me, because the computer on my '86 truck does the exact same thing...and you can get that at a junkyard for cheap.

I noticed my '86 C10 has a knock sensor that fits in place of a freeze plug. I would think this would be more effective than the one that screws into some pipe threads in the side of the block.

Does anybody else have any experience with this unit?

You can use a stock TBI truck computer reprogramed w/o fuel control as a timing computer. You could duplicate your current curve, or if you get into tuning, you could program your own curve. Way better than the MSD unit. About the same price as the J&S unit. Doesn't have individual cylinder retard like the J&S though.
I'm debating on doing this myself.

How do you program the computer?

Laptop,free software and a chip burner.
I simplfied it some.
You can buy a prom replacement for $175 and use a laptop and free software. Or just a couple of $9 chips, $10 chip socket and a burner. Burner prices vary, $50 to $150. I'm going w/an on the fly set up for $325 since it's more convient for EFI tunig. So I'm not up on the burner method. The burner method was the original way of doing it.

It also depends on how fancy you want to get w/ the program. You can use coolant temp, rpm, air temp, throttle position for shaping the timing curve.
With or w/o a knock sensor.
Timing computer link (http://www.diy-efi.org/gmecm/papers/747spark.txt)

Prom Programming (http://www.thirdgen.org/newdesign/tech/promintro.shtml)

$175 repl. prom (http://misterbill.homeip.net/)

On the fly programing (http://moates.net/)