should be 16 or so at idle.. for stock B16A, and since it's on a b16B pistons, maybe can play safe and set it to 13-14 and see if the knock disappears.. it will kill a bit of power theoretically, but you can tweak it higher in conjuction with the VAFC/fuel press. later on. Anyway, it's a good idea to check your distributor timing and see where it's at.. it's still good to know when the pinking occurs, with regards to temp, so that's a bit of info that is useful.
As for VAFC.. you need to know exactly when it's knocking, so get your VAFC to display the TPS, air correction % and RPM, then try to remember to note where the pinking happens.
Note exactly when it happens, then move the RPM point to the rpm point where the knocks occur, and tweak at that point.. It's the reason why VAFC has programmable RPM points, so you can specifically add fuel at that rpm point if you only have issues at that rpm point. The prev & next rpm point air correction is extrapolated from the value you entered at that specific rpm point, so it should NOT be too far apart like 1.5Krpm or something.. unless you're really trying to retain the prev and next rpm point air correction values.
If all else fails, reinitialize and start over.. since B16B pistons has higher compression, retard the distributor till the knocking stops (best do this on a very hot day, with the engine bay temps already hot.) then tune your VAFC.
From what I can remember, enriching it causes a slight reduction in timing, so it should not be knocking if you enrich it a bit. (not sure though, it's been a while.. or was it the reverse? I think I'm right on that first part tho.)
Do note that I THINK(therefore I'm not sure.. (O_o))
+ve air correction does not mean enriching the mixture.. from what I can remember.. it displays what it displays.. air correction percentage, not fuel %.
If I'm not wrong, -ve air correction % = richer mixture. I could be wrong, so better double check that. I think it's right though, because I think I remember my maps were like -11% at 8K, so obviously I'm not leaning my engine out at high rpms, aren't I? and during that stage I was only running 2.5 (3bar without vac) fuel pressure.
Anyway, on part throttle, assuming your ECU is a stock ECU with a knockboard, you should be getting a checklight due to the knock sensor.
If not, you're probably runnning a chipped ECU, in which case, could be a source of your problem as well, as the VAFC only 'moves' the point of reference in the ECU stock mapping. So what it does is it makes the ECU think that it's reading higher load than normal, thus inject more fuel. hence what VAFC does is not control the injectors, but control what pressure the MAP sensor is seeing so the ECU thinks that it's seeing higher load, so it will read the part in the table where fuelling or injector duration is more.
At part throttle, it should be a closed loop system, aiming for 14.7 AFR. The tip in will read something like 13.5-12.8 or so, but after that it should revert to 14.7 at the exact same part throttle %. This is something I've discovered after logging my AFR, P30 on a B16A.
So if it happens at part throttle and only at that particular rpm range.. that's strange.. either your ECU is running open loop, or somehow only that part of the mapping on the ECU has too lean a fuelling, or too high an ignition value.
Or it could be something else... too sleepy to think about it now.. maybe tommorow.
