Governor or Rev Limiter

Jackson Ellis

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Hello, I have a Kohler command CH23 V twin that I have removed from its original golf cart and am putting onto a home built go kart. The engine has had machine work done and I have cleaned it up and it is now ready to go back together after sitting for quite a few years. I am ditching the stock carburetor and governor/throttle linkage as it came to me in pieces and finding a new one puts me around 400$ which was too much for me so I opted for a motorcycle carburetor to match the CC's and welded up my own intake. With keeping the stock internals I need a way to keep the RPM's below 4000 as I no longer am using the stock linkage. The two ideas I have in mind are to either manually control the governor with a separate linkage or remove the governor completely when putting the engine back together and instead splice a rev limiter into the magnetos. I have never done either of these before and I'm seeking advice on the better choice as well as what would be easier for me to accomplish. If someone could add their thoughts and help me find a solution to this problem I would greatly appreciate it. Please and Thank you.
 

Scrubcadet10

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I would get a tachometer and not go over 4000.
Or use the tach to figure out where the carb throttle is when it's max and make a stopper the throttle hits against .
 

cpurvis

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I would get a tachometer and not go over 4000.
Or use the tach to figure out where the carb throttle is when it's max and make a stopper the throttle hits against .
Disconnect the governor linkage and connect your throttle cable directly to the throttle shaft. Now you're the governor.

I don't think a throttle stop will work because you'd want the throttle to open completely at rpm's below 4,000 rpm. Some kind of rev limiter set to 4,000 rpm would be nice but not necessary.
 

StarTech

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Could always do as one customer did here on Robin engine. He took a section of a field fence and wire the governor wide open and use a bounce clutch and trees or kill switch as the stop method. They put the go cart rear up of the ground and start to engine. Then bounced until it came off the blocks.

Kinda dangerous I thought. But it was a redneck repair. Of course it left my shop working correctly again; just had to the wire and put on a new governor spring.
 

Jackson Ellis

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Disconnect the governor linkage and connect your throttle cable directly to the throttle shaft. Now you're the governor.

I don't think a throttle stop will work because you'd want the throttle to open completely at rpm's below 4,000 rpm. Some kind of rev limiter set to 4,000 rpm would be nice but not necessary.
Im assuming this implies that I keep the physical governor gear and assembly inside the engine and control it manually via the lever that sticks out of the top of the engine. I was thinking of just removing the governor assembly entirely and using the engine normally just like "scrubcadet10" said and keeping it under 4000rpm with a tach. I don't think this will limit the power of the engine nor do I think it will effect anything internally. I thought this was a good idea so I ended up buying a tach and my plan was to keep the air/fuel ratio down but also tune the carb to the point where when its wide open it will hit 4k.
 

100 td

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Your engine needs full fuel flow under load so you can't tune it down to 4000, because at 4000, and up to 4000 you have varying loads. If you don't want to run a governor, add an electronic rev limiter or you will end up over revving it and doing damage eventually, but of course, your call. Good luck!
 
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