Pinto Pinking like a mad man

[neil parsons]

Question about the infamous pinto boat anchor engine , although the engine is not in a Dutton.

The 2.0 litre engine pinks link hell when gradually accelerating  and given the noise you would think the engine is about to self destruct. The engine is 202 block pinto that has been uprated with head / cam work .

I have tinkered slightly with the timing  slightly as the engine did run on and on when ignition turned off , and the only solution I can find to get rid of 95% of it is to use Premium grade petrol with a little octane booster. The engine is unleaded head but was told lead substitute  helps ?

Anyone else solved this problem , great engine these pintos are mind buckets of torque and keeps up with modern day traffic (in my escort) when coupled to a 5 speed box

Neil

[Adrian Southgate]

Never had one done, the Sierra is still running 'soft' seats. Just a full bottle of lead substitute into every fourth or fifth fill up, never use 'supermarket' fuel, or Shell :(

I also use 'dry fuel' in the tank to remove any water in both cars, Leggy is prone to water due to the filler cap being frenched in and near horizontal and despite the seriously expensive 'aero' cap it still sneaks in.

Back in the 90's I used Shell with no problem, it's only this V power stuff i've had issue with. As I said it was fine for 30 odd miles then started to run a bit hot, smelled hot too. I was on the M6 / A50 doing a 200 mile run and on the way back it became almost undriveable, pinking, lacking power and generally running rough. By the time I got home the bonnet had deformed due to the heat radiating off the manifold. When it all cooled down I checked all my settings and they were exactly as normal, Still ran but like a bag of sh1te.

The fuel was obviously burning in the manifolds as well as the combustion chambers by that time. 

Neil, have you done a compression test? also are the valve seats hardened or is it a late head off a Granada/Sierra?

[Big Vern]

If you've not had the head converted to unleaded how can you make the claim V power kills unleaded heads? All premium grades are not suitable for leaded only engines and all the fuel companies advise against using their fuels in engines that are not compatible with unleaded. You would have to use regular unleaded with castrol valvemaster aditive to prevent damaging your engine.

Please don't blame the fuel companies because you have misused their fuels.

[Adrian Southgate]

DOH, I seem to have made a complete dick of myself (again) 

I'll get my coat.

Don't know why I typed unleaded, must have been a brain fart somewhere down the time line.

Simple fact is 20,000 ish miles with no problem, one tank of shell and its scuppered. Research after the event told me there was ethanol in that type of fuel and I drew my own (possibly incorrect) conclusions.

[James Doulton]

Don't be too hard on yourself, Ade. It has been an informative discussion and I feel that I have learnt quite a bit from it. We all make typos frm tome to tume.

[Big Vern]

Sorry Ade, it wasn't meant to be a dig at you though it does sound like it reading it back.

Unless you're using a modern high performance engine don't use any premium grade. They are designed for fast combustion burn and often result in higher operating temperatures. Modern engines are designed to cope with that, the Pinto is a slow burn engine andthat has long been its achillies heel. If you're engine is a leaded engine the use regular unleaded plus and lead substitute/octane booster such as castrol valvemaster. If you're engine has been converted then use regular unleaded and an octane booster.

[Adrian Southgate]

No offence taken at having my typo pointed out and a good reminder that 'assumption is the mother of all *uckups' (name that film...)

At the time I killed my 202 head I had no idea that the fuel wasn't suitable for older engines otherwise I wouldn't have used it (obviously) There were no warnings and like a numpty I just filled it up. That first 30 miles it went like a rocket... :(

[Dave Adams]

shell has a reputation for producing dodgy fuels....remember formula shell?  killed many engines before shell would admit they had a problem

[Big Vern]

Petrol additives are tested to industry standards on an industry standard engine, the Merc M102e a design that dates back to the 70's I believe. We have two of them at our place running for 1000's of hours doing hundreds of tests - no damage to the engine. Seems more likely that a switch to V power and its agressive clean up additive dislodged carbon from the back of the inlet valve, that gets trapped on the valve seat and hammered in to the soft iron head causing pitting and poor compression, thats hardly the fuels fault, after all if you use supermarket fuel that has little or no clean up additive (thats why its cheaper) than the backs of your valves will resemble a coal face. Shell could rightly argue its poor maintenance ir poor quality unleaded conversion - there are none I've seen that do the job properly :(  It can't be done on a Pinto anyway FMC proved that.

[Dave Adams]

i deliver supermarket fuels....as well as branded fuels ....they all come from the same refinery often i get to choose which fuels go to which customer, sometimes we add a bottle of additive to the storage tank prior to filling them.

some fuels are specific to manufacturers most not....supermarkets are cheaper because they cut margins to the bone the branded ones don't, much like the iphone......really crap specs and a label ...so everyone raves about how good it is. its that brand mentality that keeps some things for sale at prices that aren't justified.

[Big Vern]

Yep indeed, the 'branded' fuels are blended then delivered, the 'unbranded' fuels such as supermarket are base fuel from the refinery and the additive is put int the tank then the fuel dropped on top and thats considered mixed! assuming Dave remembers to put the additive in :)

 

[Dave Adams]

pinto distributors

modifying your own pinto dissy

diy mods

really interesting site on ignition timing and modifying dissys 

modifying

[Dave Adams]

Any way i speak from some experience of four pinto engines ....one late sierra and one rs 2000 and two standard cortina engines.......they all pinked with unleaded and even with the premium fuel unleaded, when the ignition was retarded to 4 degrees ....ish, they were much better. at 10 degrees they were as bad as ever.

its the hassle getting a nice running engine and the lousy fuel consumption combined with VERY expensive tuning options to get anywhere like good performance that persuaded me to bin all my pinto's all i have left is a few standard dissys somewhere.

never a fan of the boat anchor.......some think they are fords best engine but then some folks think the lotus cortina was good as well.