Knock Sensor Code 55 92 Es300

[m sorel]

Looking for some opinions on my car since it going to the dealership on Wednesday (July 6/05).

Check engine light started mid December, had code pulled by Midas with an hours worth of Diagnostic. (No Auto Zone in Canada)

Code 55 was pulled and the Mech. wanted to check the wiring. These are his comments:

Open circuit near harness connector behind left head. Shielded wire is broken; needs new connector & pigtail (12" long) to complete the circuit. If this does not repair complaint further diag time required.

It turns out this pigtail and harness is not a part you can buy, they want me to hack one off a car at a wreker and then hack job it into my car.

Personally I am not convinced there is anything wrong with the wire at all

Basically the code only gets thrown after the car is fully heated up and the RPM's reach 2700. Doesn't matter if it is in gear under hard acceleration, sitting in the parking lot revving aggressively or just slowly bringing the RPM's up .

If I unplug the said harness completely and start the car the code gets thrown faster than you can "Um... why's your check engine light on?"

Also if the wire really was loose shouldn't it break contact under varying load conditions not varying RPM's?

Needless to say I am looking for another opinion at the lexus dealership, but the first thing they said was usually rats/mice like to sleep up by the exhaust manifold against the fire wall and eat the wires I mentioned the harness at the dealership when I made the appointment, now their focused on it too.

Why won't anyone believe that maybe, just maybe the knock sensor is in fact not working?

Am I crazy? What do you think is going on?

[Toysrme]

Check engine light started mid December, had code pulled by Midas with an hours worth of Diagnostic. (No Auto Zone in Canada)

It's OBD-I... They can't pull the code unless they have the specific Toyota box to do so.

Open the diagnostics port in the engine bay (behind passanger wheel well), or above the driver's left foot.

Short E1 and TE1 with a wire / paperclip / whatever.

The dummy lights show the status of the system.

They don't believe it because they are right. 99% of the time, an actual knock sensor code is due to the wire grounding out, or to EMI.

Buy a used knock sensor off ebay. I had to get one when I destroyed one of mine.

If you're really hard up, run one knock sensor. Cut the faulty wire, and splice it into the functioning wire at the ECU. It's a ton easier to take the glove box out, than the upper intake off (If you've never done either).

Knock sensor wires are both on B connector (16 pins) Knock sensor 1, bank 1 is a solid white wire (B6) Knock sensor 2, bank 2 is a solid black wire (B14). Wire colors are not re-used on the same connector, so just look for the 16 pin/wire connector.

Code 5-5 is a problem with the knock control system in the ECM. Right hand bank (Right hand = rear, rear = bank 1)

You want to splice the white wire into the black one.

Toyota leaves 0 slack in the lines... You'll want to un-bind / un wrap a lot of the wire bundle, and do the cutting a ways from the ECU. Personally... I ADD wire when I cut stuff off, so you're never short.

Solder + heat shrink is how it should go, but if you're hard up, twist it together and use some small twist caps.

I would suggest that being an interm measure. I wouldn't drive more than a year like that. You shouldn't notice any differance, but slightly improved performance from not being in a limp mode. 3vz-fe's have to be on their their death bed to ping.

[m sorel]

Thanks for your thoughts on the matter, I like the running one sensor technique.

It's not the part cost I am all that worried about, it's definitely the Intake manifold re/re cost.

I actually had two more questions

1. My timing belt is almost due and I am told by Midas that significant amounts of oil has leaked into the housing from the engine seals. Should I expect any break in price if this work is performed at the same time as the intake manifold coming off, or is there not much common re/re there?

and

2. Anyone want to guess just how many HP's of my stock 188(?) have been gone while being in limp mode for the last 7 months? The diagnostic sheet that Midas uses (ALLDATA online) states ".... it (ECU) operates the fail safe function in which the corrective !Removed! angle value is set to the maximum value."

[Toysrme]

The timing belt housing comes off to get the belt off.

If oil leaks in... It leaks back out. The cover's dont' seal anything, they simply keep "the golden BB" from bouncing up into the timing belt.

It depends on the limp mode. When I blew my knock sensor out (5-5 also - damned nitro - methanol injection:D) there really wasn't much of a power / responce decrease. It was there, but not horrible.

I never found many limp modes. There is the small limp mode that simply runs extra rich, and there is the big momma that locks you out of overdrive, dumps 100% duration to the injectors at any rpm over idle to keep the engine cool / slow the revving down, and won't let it spin past 4250rpm (like you can get to 4000rpm easy, let alone pass it).

I blew a half a tank of gas on a 25 mile trip in ultra limp mode when I first installed my SMT-6.

[m sorel]

Well that pretty much verifies what I thought, I figured somewhere between 5-10% at the most. The car still runs super smooth, maybe smoother. It just doesn't have every last bit of pep that it used to. It's really just the light thats cramping my style.

[m sorel]

Ok, well it's Wednesday so my car is in the shop

After an hour they called me and said the sensor itself was bad; guess I will be keeping the 05 es330 loaner overnight

I might have to write a report on the 02-03 tranny problem thread. The Canadian 05 loaner I am driving shifts like cr@p! My 92 knows what it is doing, shifts fast and does it with conviction.

Hopefully I will get my car back Thursday, fixed. (quoted 5 hours work, replace knock sensor on right bank)