99-01 Cobras come equipped with knock sensors, not sure about the 96-98 Cobras and Mach 1s.
I was out working with a car with knock sensors over the weekend. In a nutshell, with the stock knock sensor parameters...a knock sensor equipped car can pull up to 6 degrees of timing when the sensor(s) activate. There is a retard rate, which determines how quickly the timing is pulled out. In stock form, the EEC will pull out one degree of timing every 1/4 second. Wheel hop will activate knock sensors.
There is an advance rate, which determines how quickly the timing is put back in the motor when no knocking is detected. One degree will be added in per X amount of seconds. In stock form, there is a "blending ramp" for timing advance. The more RPM the motor sees, the quicker the timing will come back in.
There is one more table called advance limit. Care must be taken not to populate this table with anything greater than 0. When the knock sensors are not going off, the EEC will try to advance timing when looking at this table. In stock form, this table is populated with positive values in some RPM areas. You may be in for a nasty surprise if you add timing in another area of the tune, and forget to set the knock advance table to zeros.
I was out working with a car with knock sensors over the weekend. In a nutshell, with the stock knock sensor parameters...a knock sensor equipped car can pull up to 6 degrees of timing when the sensor(s) activate. There is a retard rate, which determines how quickly the timing is pulled out. In stock form, the EEC will pull out one degree of timing every 1/4 second. Wheel hop will activate knock sensors.
There is an advance rate, which determines how quickly the timing is put back in the motor when no knocking is detected. One degree will be added in per X amount of seconds. In stock form, there is a "blending ramp" for timing advance. The more RPM the motor sees, the quicker the timing will come back in.
There is one more table called advance limit. Care must be taken not to populate this table with anything greater than 0. When the knock sensors are not going off, the EEC will try to advance timing when looking at this table. In stock form, this table is populated with positive values in some RPM areas. You may be in for a nasty surprise if you add timing in another area of the tune, and forget to set the knock advance table to zeros.