Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Pinging...

I know that this isn't really the time of year for this, but living out in the desert (Las Vegas) causes some weird stuff. My Contour is an 97, GL Sport with an ATX and a Duratec motor. Car has 192K miles and runs exceptionally now. For the past 20K miles, my Contour had a pinging problem around 3500 rpm's. Pinging would not go away with even Chevron Super. My local mechanic suggested getting a bottle of Lucas Oil Stabilizer. Runs about $8. I used that along with their fuel treatment / Upper cylinder Lube and the pinging is just about hsitory. I'm weening the car off of 92 octane back to 89 and still no pinging. Power is great and oil comsumption is practically nil.

I presume that the gas treatment is decarboning the cylinders. The process of slow fouling and carbon buildup is called "octane creep". Removing it reduces the octane requirement back toward original.

It's marketed as up upper cylinder lube with injector cleaners and fuel conditioners. All I care about is that it works.

Thanks for the info. I will try it this weekend. Anything to stop the pinging.....