Leaderboard

There are couple or work arounds if you find the knock sensor is bad: 1) splice in a resistor but I don't remember which one, should be searchable, I did that as a quickie to pass smog 2) relocate the new knock sensor on top of the engine (which I did eventually) I think instructions searchable here as well.

The knock sensor code doesn't mean that the engine is knocking. If the computer hears something it doesn't like, it pulls ignition timing until the noise goes away, but it doesn't tell you about it. The knock sensor code means the knock sensor isn't working. The manual says to check the sensor (should be 500-620k ohms), check the harness, and loosen and retighten a couple of grounds on the engine. Diag starts on EC-320 of the '02 manual. The catch is that the knock sensor is under the intake manifold. Unless there's a VQ-specific shortcut that I'm not aware of, or you have an exceptionally cooperative pet rat, you'll have to remove the manifold to access the sensor. I had a knock sensor code on my '93 a while back. Turned out the sensor was bad. Unless you hear pinging, I would ignore it until you're back home. The knock sensor is there for emergencies, and not used in normal operation. (I have wondered if the computer might pull timing out of caution if it knows it's got a bad knock sensor, but I have found nothing in the manual to support this.)