99 turbo pinking

Given that the three main causes of pinking -
excessive charge pressure, low octane fuel or over advanced ignition should have been covered by your recent services and the measures you take with your fuel. Then there's not much left really is there?

I suppose it could be worth double checking the timing and charge pressure & I know it can be caused by carbon deposits building up in the combustion chambers and on the piston faces.

You could fit water injection ,but you shouldn't have to. On the postive side though, you would go faster

& welcome to Saabscene

Have you asked Jamsaab about it at all? Maybe your boost was a touch low befroe and Martin's upped it and that's made the pinking surface?

And welcome aboard from me too. Nice to have another 3 door owner about - we'll soon out number the 2 doors! Pictures are of course obligatory!

Welcome to Saabscene, Helix

Sounds like a nice car - I've always had a thing for the 3-door 99T.

If it helps, when my C900 started pinking it was over-advanced timing, one of the possibilities black&whitesaab suggests.

Hope you get it sorted.

James

I thought that pinking and knocking were the same thing

Pinking, knocking, detonation, pre-ignition - I understood them all to be synonymous.

Okay, guess I didn't make myself clear.

The 'knocking' sounds more like a rattle rather than pre-ignition. It seems that something is vibrating at full turbo boost. From my friend's spot in the passenger seat, he reckoned the noise was coming from the near side of the engine bay.

I've experienced a possibly similar nasty high-rev rattle (or rather, the 99 has) which sounded like pinking/knocking/pre-detonation etc, but turned out to be the alternator bracket rattling at its lower end against, i think, the water pump mounting.

A half-hour with a thin spanner and lots of sweary-words ameliorated this pestilential malfunction.

Worth a try...