Pinging Solved

I posted this at the TCCA, but this weekend while flushing the coolant, we found out what the pinging was - a bad TStat. The car always seemed to smell hot when I turned it off and there was ALOT of heat coming out of the engine bay. When my dad and I were changing the coolant this weekend, I decided that we should put in a new T-Stat. Not only did it solve my heat problem but the car doesn't ping worse than it should ... it doesn't ping going on a level road anymore.

Going up a hill, I got on it pretty hard and it didn't ping more than a pushrod engine should before it shifted down.

Good deal there and my O2 sensor related CEL hasn't come back on in over 500 miles, so I guess we both solved our problems.