Things you can do to help minimize detonation

[slammedcivy]

Is there any thing that you guys do other than good management to help minimize detonation

[redteg87]

Colder plugs and higher-octane fuel.

[Shocka1998LX]

Colder plugs and higher-octane fuel.
Colder plugs, high octane fuel (premium), and intercooler.

[redteg87]

Colder plugs and higher-octane fuel.
Colder plugs, high octane fuel (premium), and intercooler.

Intercooler is a given. :)

[moonlapse]

Water injection...

http://members.aol.com/taylorafdmb/water.html
http://users.frii.com/maphill/wi.html

You'd probably be able to run more timing also.

[danl]

Lower compression. When done right your car will still be strong down low but be much easier to tune.

I run water injection as well but I also have a feedback system (knock sensor) that will save my motor if the water system fails. Honda ECU's weren't designed to handle severe detonation so if the water system fails you better have a saftey built in.

DSM+7.8:1 compression+water injection+16g turbo+24 psi boost on pump gas is a whole lotta fun :hyper: .

Oh yea, and get a kickass fueling system, make sure your fuel injectors aren't running over 80% duty cycle even though you can get away with it (I used to run 120% duty cycle on stockers, dumb). Pull back ignition timing too. I run 15-20 degrees total advance under full boost and I have my freinds Turbo CRX set up the same way. Preignition is SUPER SUPER BAD, way worse than detonation.

[rkcarguySI]

Everyone is forgeting an important thing here about detonation. Detonation is when part of the engine gets hot enough to act as your "spark" and fires the A/F charge early. So what gets hot? Sharp edges on valve reliefs in the pistons, the top edge of the piston, the edges of the compression chamber, etc. It doesn't take much to get rid of this, a dremel with one of those scotchbrite wheels on it does a nice job. My car had a sharp edge on the chamber in #1, and that's the only cylinder that detonated, and blew the head gasket right where the burr was. Only precaution is that when you do the edges of the cylinder head bowl lay a old headgasket on there so you don't raduis too far under the sealing ring and ruin your head. Doing this will allow you to make more power without detonation where the other guy has to be richer, or have the timing more retarded to prevent it :shock: