Irv
Member
I've been fighting with pinging on my '03 Z06 too. In cold weather it runs like a champ. In hot weather, especially with the AC on, it pings. Sounds like marbles in the cylinder heads, so that can't be good. A friend had an '04 Z06 in So Cal that pinged, but then he put on a Vararam and the pinging stopped. Completely. Hot weather, AC or not, no pings.
I've taken a look at these Vararam things and I've resisted 'em. They look cool on paper, but they seem to have very poor build quality and installation involves many hours of cussing, and the instructions included are said to be poor at best. They at least seemed to have fixed their filter quality problems. Vararam claims water ingestion is not an issue, though you can find random forum posts that say otherwise.
My friend's experience makes me wonder if the problem is partially due to hot air ingestion with the stock filter box. I have no doubt that carbon or whatever could be a factor, but my own experience says that colder temps eliminate the pinging, so maybe that's the primary factor.
Anyway, has anyone else had pinging eliminated with a cold air intake? Frankly, I've never been a fan of any of the ones that involve cutting a hole in the radiator shroud, but if the pinging will go anyway I'll take the plunge.
I've taken a look at these Vararam things and I've resisted 'em. They look cool on paper, but they seem to have very poor build quality and installation involves many hours of cussing, and the instructions included are said to be poor at best. They at least seemed to have fixed their filter quality problems. Vararam claims water ingestion is not an issue, though you can find random forum posts that say otherwise.
My friend's experience makes me wonder if the problem is partially due to hot air ingestion with the stock filter box. I have no doubt that carbon or whatever could be a factor, but my own experience says that colder temps eliminate the pinging, so maybe that's the primary factor.
Anyway, has anyone else had pinging eliminated with a cold air intake? Frankly, I've never been a fan of any of the ones that involve cutting a hole in the radiator shroud, but if the pinging will go anyway I'll take the plunge.
