Ford Repair: Engine knocking, high performance cars, ford taurus

Question
I have a 99 Ford Taurus with a 6-cylinder, and about 51,000 miles on it. I am hearing a pinging and knocking when going up hill. I have always used gasoline with at least a 92 octane rating, and have tried up to 94, but I still get the knocking. I have even used an octane booster, which seems to lessen the knock. Are boosters safe to use, or is there some other way to adjust the timing, or is there something else I should know?  

Answer
David-

  If you've been using 92 octane all along you probably need to have the carbon cleaned out of your engine.  92 octane is great for high performance cars or cars with forced induction (supercharger, turbocharger, or nitrous oxide) but for a Taurus it's too high.  Since a Taurus is made to run on 87 octane, 92 won't burn off as completely and leave carbon deposits in the engine.  This isn't a big deal unless you do it all the time over a good period of time.  This carbon build up can effect your compresion ratio and cause the engine knocking you're experiencing.  I'd try running a few bottles of fuel system cleaner through there (one bottle per tank, of course) and if that doesn't help then I'd take it to a shop and have them do a full cleaning job on it.  Hope this helps.

Steve