What is the difference between knocking and ticking?

My 4runner does one of the two quite a bit when going up hills and hard acceleration onto the highway. I'm trying to figure out if it's the ticking which is ok, or knocking which is bad. Can someone tell me the difference or find a few threads that clue me in.

Can anyone tell me what the difference is? I know the ticking is from the valves and that might be my problem but I'm still not for certain if it isn't knocking. This has been happening quite a long time and to me it seems to be getting worse...maybe not though.

anyways anybody with any idea of what the differences is, please let me know. Thank you.

 

Actually, I think what you're hearing is pinging, which is usually considered OK under the circumstances you describe.

Knocking is the worst out of the three. You would know if it was knocking, trust me.

You probably have nothin to worry about.

 

I would describe engine ticking as a continual sound, occurring all the time whether you were at idle or under load. Knocking and pinging usually occurs under light and/or heavy load and can be caused by a number of things. My '90 2nd gen V6 3.slow would ping on occasion. An occasional fill-up with mid-grade (89 octane) would usually stop it. I also advanced the timing a few degrees which also seemed to help. A certain amount of pinging is considered normal, although I prefer not to have it occur such that I can hear it.