knock sensor locations

hows it going Andre/everybody,

I am curious to know, on certain engines that don't come factory with a knock sensor location. Where would one want to install the sensor for best results. I just purchased the Haltech Knock ears and should be here soon. for example I am tuning my car and a friends car and a quick run down on our builds are, mine is a LS-Vtec-turbo its the 1.8 non vtec block with the gsr head and gt35r turbo. the engine has supporting mods however the B18B1 block doesn't have a knock sensor location anywhere on the block. My friends build is a High compression B20-vtec with CTR cams and supporting mods. neither of our blocks have factory knock sensor locations. so basically what I am asking is, where would be a good location to attach these sensors for the best possible results? thank you for any help in this matter. I can attach pictures of the engines if necessary.

Ideal place is in the centre of the block (between cylinders 2&3) and as close to the top of the block deck as possible. The idea behind that is to get as close to the combustion chamber but without being on the head and picking up head/valve train noise.

From memory most Honda motors don't have a spare bolt hole in this location, although I believe on the exhaust manifold side near the middle/front of the engine there is some spare bolt holes which work well.

Thanks for the reply Chris,

Unfortunately, there aren't any locations I can see on those blocks. Is there somewhere else that is possible to mount one? This can be a more generalized question for any engine that doesn't have a factory knock sensor.

turbod4,

As chris has said, the block is the ideal location. Other places you can place the sensor, albeit with higher signal to noise ratios, include the engine head and the intake manifold if your manifold is metallic. I am not sure how the haltech system works, but I use a plex knock monitor system and it has varying audio filters that you can use to filter out background noise if you have the sensor in a less than ideal location.

Chris1388,

Thank you for the reply, that's awesome. I've been looking at other knock detection equipment, I'd get a plex knock block but that's a little out of my price range. I was looking at the phormula ks-4 but I don't know anything about it. I am going to open a thread asking about them.

Sometimes you need to mount a knock sensor where there is a spare threaded boss to do so. My order of priority is :

1. High on engine block

2. Low on engine block

3. Sump or front cover

4. Cylinder head

5. Intake manifold

It's very much engine dependent but I find the head or intake manifold locations can be mechanically nosier, particularly if you have a mechanical valve actuation system.

Good day all,

I’m in a similar predicament. I would like to mount a external/aftermarket knock sensor to confirm my factory knock sensor touse as a margin of error during tuning on the dyno. I’m looking for an ideal mounting location on a B18C GSR that would not give too much noise/interference. I'm tuning with a Hondata S300 in a OBD1 P72 ecu & using a Link G4+ Knock Block to set up n confirm my Knock Controls. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Regards

Jonathan Akien