With conservative timing, nope. I have yet to hear sit ping, and that is driving it around town and on the highway in 100+ heat. Now my buddy said he originally ran more timing in both motors he built this way. With more timing it did ping, and he said both rigs blew head gaskets like clockwork every 5k miles. Now he never ran premium fuel. He said they did have more power and response with more timing, but the head gasket repairs were getting old. I have been tempted to fuel up with premium and bump the timing up just to see how much better it would do.
As I said before, no experience driving a stock 16 valve, but with 235 tires, pulling a small trailer it will still run and hold 70 in 5th gear. And no trailer, I can air it out and run 80+ all day long.