Pinging, beater, gonna boost but need to get it stable first... help?
 

Hey there folks,

A while back I picked up a beater 2000 SE from a friend, and made a youtube video of a noise it had. It makes the noise under light load, for example when cruising or gently accelerating. If you accelerate or decelerate in earnest, it doesn't happen. Specifics: CAI, CA-spec, bad precat, live in TX in a non-sniffer county... yeah that's pretty much it. And please don't say "sympathetic vibration". I checked the heat shield, various nuts and bolts, and everything's tight. So... that leaves some nasty pinging, right? It can't be shims right, because wouldn't it happen constantly if the clearances were off?

So I'd like to fix the "pinging" and the CEL from the bad precat.
Question 1: Do you guys have any diagnostic techniques to figure out the pinging? It seems like the computer tries to make it run super lean under that condition, just from experience tuning carburetors.
Question 2: How likely does it seem that the dead precat could put the stock ecu into a base map that would keep it from giving it enough gas under light accel?
Question 3: How's your day? Goin ok?
Question 4: What do you think about putting headers on it, muffler-shop mid pipe, universal cat, and universal O2 sensors fore and aft, and keeping the stock exhaust for now? Do you think that would satisfy the stock ECU and help it give the engine a better AFR? Would that fix the pinging?
Question 4b: If that doesn't fix the pinging, I figure I should squirt it, and if I can't tune the ping out with a MSPNP, I'll just rebuild the sucker. Not a question I guess. Ok question: how wrong-headed does that sound to you?

The original video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4Xq...DFeTskTOXMm6TA

It makes the noise at any RPM, but only under light load.

Also, you people rock. I'll get flamed for my noobishness but I know you guys are brothers that are gonna work it out. Brother's gonna work it out. Brother's gonna work it out. DS al Coda.

Link es no bueno.

Dammit.