Speed Limiter

[aerronog]

Hi,

I´ve had my 2002 Limited V8 for about a week now, today i decided to check it o a very lonely highway to see haw fast she could go... and this is what happened: Is was cruising at full throttle an i got to 160 KPH (100 MPH) and suddenly the throttle got down and the car leveled alt 150 KPH ( aprox 93 MPH ) ... is this normal in 3rd gens?? is there a way to avoid it??

Thanx for the help!!!

 

[E.B. Cornburner]

I tried the same thing with my '04 V6, and it limits the top speed to ~110 MPH. With the electronic throttle control, it's a bit different feeling than other cars...It just softly reduces power to keep the vehicle from going any faster. Other vehicles would abrubptly shut the engine off when the top speed was reached.

The top speed limiter can be adjusted with certain brands of power programmers such as Superchips, Hypertech, etc. I have never looked into whether any such programmers exist for the late-model Explorers though. If in fact one does exist for your application, it's possible to raise the top speed thru reprogramming of the PCM.
When I had my '97 Grand Prix, I had the PCM reprogrammed, and raised the top speed limiter from a paltry 108 MPH to 199 MPH...The maximum allowable number to program into it. I then discovered that the real top end of the car was ~136 MPH when the engine hit its rev limiter at 6500 RPM!

 

[aldive]

IOther vehicles would abrubptly shut the engine off when the top speed was reached..

The speed limiter does NOT "abrubptly shut the engine off".

 

[E.B. Cornburner]

So what do you call it when your injector pulse and ignition coils stop when the PCM sees the top speed indicated by the VSS? I call it shutting off!

Every car can be different, but all my previous Dodge and GM products just abrubptly shut everything down at top speed, then, if your foot was still planted on the floor, would come back when the vehicle slowed back down ~3-5 MPH from its programmed top speed. I had scan logs from my Grand Prix that showed 0 injector pulse width at 108 MPH.

This Explorer is the first vehicle that had a "soft" speed limiter where the vehicle just felt like it was making less power as top speed was reached.

 

[techieman33]

I don't know what mine does when it hits top speed, other than it feels like hitting a wall.