knock detection systems

[prj]

I prefer not to drive around daily with earphones, when this thing does what is supposed to do on the Golf, which has a crude K-Jet injection system and not Motronic.
It tells me when the engine knocks when I have to run the Golf on petrol. It does not flash when the octane of the fuel is high, but it does flash when the octane of the fuel is low. This tells me it works. If I roll the windows down, I can also hear the pinging noise when the LED goes off. Not easy with the windows up and stereo on full blast. Thus, the system serves a purpose on that particular car.
It has helped me keep the rod bearings in one piece since 2006. I had to replace them back in 06 after a few weeks driving on 11:1 comp, 99 octane and no knock warning. With the knock warning it tells me something is wrong and I step off the gas a little or pull off the vacuum advance for the distributor. For me, not having to replace the rod bearings at regular intervals this is well worth the 30 something quid I paid back in 2006.
I agree that it has very limited value on a Motronic car, but on a K-Jet car like my Golf, it certainly does a good job.

Good, so we both agree it's useless for an S2. That's my point.

Some rather favorable experiences from the Volvo forum, with comments from Boris, the guy who makes the KnockSense:
The knocksense registered non audible knock that showed up in the knock log:
http://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=100085

Oh please, of course knock is NON AUDIBLE on the outside if you don't have a mic connected to the engine block. By the time it is AUDIBLE it's way too late. If you get AUDIBLE knock on a 600nm car on stock rods, it's time to open the engine and pull out the bananas.
That guy is using megasquirt which goes off of the signal "detection", using a single threshold filter.
This is horrible.

ME7 has great closed loop knock control, but even with it, if you use your headphones, you will hear it. M2.3.2 is not as advanced, but it still will pull timing and enrich way before these play toys show anything when properly tuned.

Do you have any idea how much time I have spent on researching this? Months. I am serious.
The only solution is either an ECU with properly tuned knock control, including knock window, boost, per-cylinder calibration thresholds. Or your ears.
Everything else is a waste of time.

[EspenW]

Yep, agreed on the S2.