New plugs and wire, but now won't rev past 3000 in P or N?

[1qwikbird]

The truck is my father's, so I am not the regular driver. If this question is silly, I'll apologize up front. He asked me to throw a fresh set of plugs/wires on his truck for him and I did so today without any real difficulties except for the #4 and the EGR tube crossing right in the path of the plug which made getting the wire off and on (securely) quite the adventure.

Anyway, I go down to my local NAPA get the plugs (Autolites) and wires (NAPA brand?) and after I'm done. I start the truck, all feels fine. She kicks right off, idles nice and smooth. The old plugs were definitley worn as the gap had grown to about 0.085. I gapped the new ones to 0.054. So I decide to rev the truck up a bit and she wouldn't go past 3000k without breaking up???? I started looking for a loose wire at the plug end. Made sure the firing order was good. (Ford musta had a bad day when assigning the firing order at the coil pack, 1-2-3 then 5-6-4 - asking for a problem with that layout) Anyway after much deliberation I pulled the new plugs, double check the gaps, wire connections. So I took it out on the road and it ran like a beast. Pulled strong on the highway, well past 3000.

Being completely unfamiliar with this vehicle I even put all the old stuff back on thinking maybe I was given the wrong wires or something, but even with the old plugs and wires it behaved the same way?

So my question is: Does ford have some sort of saftey rev limiter built into the ecu to limit engine RPM in Park and Neutral. Never encountered such a thing before. There are no Check Engine lights or Service Engine lights on and I even hooked up my hand scanner to pull codes, thinking maybe the light is burnt out, but scanner read clean?

Thanks for any input you could offer.

Chris

 

[03OhioSportTrac]

Rev limiter...

 

[1qwikbird]

If I told you how many hours I wasted chasing that ghost, before it dawned on me that it might be a factory rev limiter/saftey device I'd get banned from this board immediately.

Thanks for the quick reply. Looks like the maintenance of the truck is going to fall in my lap, so I'll be poking around quite a bit and hopefully give back meaningful info along the way.

Chris

 

[ncranchero]

Well take comfort in the fact that you aren't the first and won't be the last to ask about this subject!

 

[1qwikbird]

Well take comfort in the fact that you aren't the first and won't be the last to ask about this subject!

I bet that's the result of some ambulance chasing lawyer combined with some idiot who ran himself or someone else over.

Oh well. I can tell you that I got real good at doing the plugs though.

Driver side is easiest with a 6"+3" extension for all 3 plugs and a piece of hose to get them started so you don't cross thread them, being as you can't really even see the holes.

On the passenger side I found that going in through the wheel well (wheel and A-arm flap removed) made that side pretty easy. 1" extension gets on all three very nicely. You can start all of these by hand without too much difficulty. I think getting the wires off then on securely is more difficult than the plugs themselves.

Chris