I have ordered the knock sensor. In the meanwhile, I continue to drive the car. The car sometimes dies without warning or right after EPS comes on too and I lose power steering, and the car dies. At this point, no electrical components seem to work or barely work, e.g. very dim dash. Even the windows dont go up. When i went to restart the car, the engine would turn a couple times like there was a bad battery (which i checked). This time, I only disconnected the positive terminal of the battery, straightened some wiring near the intake manifold. And the car STARTED FINE again. Confused, I drove back home. Besides battery removal and some line tinkering, there is the ~10 min that the car was able to cool down. So that may be a factor.

I know the knock sensor is bad but whats up with all this electrical problems?

update:

I am starting to think it can only be the alternator. For example, the car was running normally, then STARTED DYING but remained barely alive, with no electronics
working, but the car was BARELY running at extremely low rpms. THAT made me think alternator. I checked it and the green wiring plug in the back is secure. The cable is bolted on tight. The only thing I havent checked is the fuse. (I connected the battery AFTER installing the alternator after a clutch change).

Another thought was that the ignition switch was bad.
But I dont know much about how that works.

Thanks for all the help guys!!

 

you can. I drove without one for about one month without problems. The engine run fine, but it had no timing advance, so it had reduced power. As a funny note, since the timing was not advancing, I just put 87 in the car while I waited for the sensor and it made no difference until then, hehe.

 

You'll be fine

 

So I dont really need to get it fixed? or take my time fixing it? i.e. ordering parts online.

 

U can drive it just dont hit vtec.

 

Let me reword it, you'll be fine until you fix the problem, my knock sensor went out a year ago, and yes you'll lose power, is it noticable? No, but you do need to fix it, it reads the timing of the engine so it wouldnt be smart to ignore it

 

Many of use ECU's that ignore the knock sensor and find it is not a problem.

 

stick to mobile gasoline until you get it fixed. it would be unfortunate if you run into a bad tank of gas

 

So why is it there? Its there for a reason, fix it when you can

 

If detonation is detected it pulls timing to protect the engine. If it is too sensitive or the ECU too quick to pull timing there is a performance penalty.

As long adequate fuel is used, temps kept in the normal range, and lugging is avoided, there should be no detonation.