Visual Knock Detection Equipment

Clearly it is essential to have some form of knock detection equipment when tuning. However the audio equipment Andre speaks of is quite expensive if only tuning a few cars. What are your thoughts on visual knock detection equipment (i.e light) such as the Knock Link G4+? This would possibly be a better option when road tuning also. Are they any other brands anyone would recommend?

good question Francis I am curious as well...

I've used the knock link a couple of times and had mixed success. I think the sort of results you're likely to get will be very dependent on how noisy the engine is to start with. The problem is that the noise level tends to increase with engine rpm and these simple lights don't have an rpm input or a noise threshold. I've had them work well on engines that are mechanically quiet but I would be suspicious of how well they would work on a noisy race engine that uses solid lifters for example. I know that I've had these trigger falsely when a VTEC mechanism changes from low cam to high cam.