I have heard a few people talk about a govenor on the some cars to only let them reach a certain speed. Could some tell me more about it, since I heard about it I was on an open strech of highway and had my 93 up to about 120 and nothing ever happened. So I guess my real question is has my governor been removed or was it there in the first place. Thanx Ron Indiana

They were placed on 94+ Thunderbirds, a rev limiter and a speedlimiter (105) Mine are both removed.

would that have included the SC's or just the LX and others. cause i know my 94 SC is pretty much stock, but i got that bad boy up to about 145...about where the numbers stop. dave

Depends if it is a stick or an Automatic. Stock Stick: 140-145 top speed (no rev limiter) Stock Au

what do you mean by "reflashing the EEC"? that is the 1st time I have ever heard that term. Thanks Jack -- In fordthunderbirdperformance@y..., "Brian G. Smith"

The EEC is, among other things, a few EEPROM chips which hold the settings. These are overriden by the external EEPROM chips, it's settings will take precidence over the EEC. If you get tuning software and *really* know what you are doing, you can reflash the EEPROM chips in the EEC. I do stress the *really* part as you need to know exactly what you are doing or you can make your car run like crap. There are a few people who will fly out to dyno sessions and tune your car, if you don't have an external chip, they will reflash your EEC. EEPROM stands for "Electrical Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory". By exposing it to an electrical charge, a "Flash" of electricity if you will, you erase the contents and then can re-write to them (usually in the same process.) The chips come unprogrammed from the factory, and Ford flashes them to put on the settings it wants while the car is on the line. EPROM uses UV light instead of electricity. If you've ever worked on your computer, here are some EEPROMs that will give you an idea of how the process works. BIOS chip, allows you to flash it for extra options, extra CPU support, etc. Modem EEPROM, allows you to flash it for new standards (the U.S.Robotics X2 to V.90 flash being the most recent I can recall) Video BIOS chip, allows you to change hardware instructions on the card (as opposed to software changes like resolution and such) DVD ROM EEPROM (also on set-top boxes), This is where they region lock the drives and why you can change the region a few times, it reflashes the EEPROM.

Man thats alot of info, thank you. I guess i'm stuck to buying a chip for my 97 Cougar 30th. Anniv. 1 question though: I have a guy I use to work with who had the same (color,and special edition) 97 30th anniv. cougar that I have and his runs 120, mine only runs 104. He was telling me, along with another guy, that there is a wire under the dash that you can unplug, on the cougar that will allow the car to run 120 but keep the rev limiter in place. The but is, the car will not run over 120. I have had 2 guys tell me the same thing. what is your opinion? Jack

No problem. For the chip I would go with one of two places. Dom Orlando at RFF Performance http://www.dmann.org/~rff/pricing.html questions to chips@... $220 Dennis Reinhart at Reinhart Automotive http://www.dmann.org/~rff/pricing.html $250 They both use the same program set used by one of the "tuners" I mentioned below. The "tuner" is the engineer that designed our transmission and probably the best T-Bird/Cougar/Mark VIII/Mustang/Crown-Vic tuner out there btw. He used to sell his chips, but now travels to Dyno meets and will not only do the below but will tune the EEC to your specific car. Price if you find out where he is going to be and can get a spot in line ~$200 if you have a chip, +$100 if you don't I currently have a DiabloSport chip which I picked up off of another t-birder for $75 when they moved on to the good chip from one of the above vendors. It removed the speed limiter (had mine up to 120 the other day before having to slow down to avoid rear-ending the 94-95 cougar in front of me ;) Note, I do not reccommend going this fast for very long or very often with a stock drivetrain for reasons I mentioned earlier) Supposedly removed the rev limiter. I never hit it before, so I can't tell you for sure, and also firmed up the shifts (At WOT I bark the tires on the 1-2 shift and sometimes on the 2-3, be careful on takeoff in the rain the 1-2 can make the rear-end loose). It increases the timing (must run premium or colder spark plugs to avoid spark knock). It also increases the shift points by a few hundred RPM. Last but not least it decreases the delay between shifts. The above chips will also increase gas miliage by a good percentage because it leans the engine back out to semi-normal (we run way too rich stock to preserve the Catalytic Convertors and Ford found out this wasn't neccessary.) and can be customized for different MAFs, Engines, Temperatures, etc etc. unlike the other chips. Superchips just plain suck, and APE isn't much better. As for the wire, they are talking out of a part of their body not associated with their head (unless of course there head is shoved up there). While there is a wire to control this, if you cut it you will get a flashing OD light and not only will it not remove the speed limiter but will also make your car run like crap. Hooking it up to any other wire will make the car not even start, and experiments with switches and such have also turned up negative.