Knock & Timing

Brief run down on why I’m asking this question. I jumped onboard the Whipple group buy and while I waited for it to arrive I got contacted by MPT to fine tune their 2018 tunes. Took my truck down to their shop and had them dyno tune the truck. Had the MPT tune for a month or so then had the infamous wrench light that others with a 2018 experienced. Reset it back to stock and finally got around to installing the Whipple kit. Now that I’ve been driving it for a few weeks on the new tune I started paying attention to the lights on the Ngauge. Yes, I’m still running the Ngauge to monitor boost, air intake temps, and knock. I have noticed on different occasions knock go down to (retard) to -6* and other occasions (advanced) to 6*. Can someone shed some light and educate me as to what this all may mean? Is there a degree that should be a warning to us?

short answer
you pull timing to get you closer to TDC before ignition. if you blow to soon you will receive spark knock, detonation.

im not as familiar as i would like to be with exacts as to if you will run into problems if the number goes to far one way or the other other than knock (more stress on internals and eventually a failure of some kind). if you explode after you reach TDC, you will be chasing your piston down the bore and most likely have 0 power.

Negative numbers, i.e. -6* means the ECU has determined it should pull timing. The tune is set to work off 0* of timing according to Whipple, so if the conditions permit it will try and advance timing (+6* of timing for example) but if not, and the ECU senses knock, it will pull timing.

The gauge will just tell you if you are feeling less power, it could be due to poor gas, high ambient temps, etc etc. That could be contributing to timing being pulled. Many factors. As long as you don't hear knock yourself you are all good as the ECU will keep the truck within margins of safety.