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There is only one governor in the CSi. The governor is not to be confused with the rev. limiter. The rev. limiter is there to protect the engine. The rev. limiter can come on at any vehicle speed if the engine is going too fast. The only time the rev. limiter and the governor work together is at 6001 RPM in 6th gear. The governor lives in the EML and comes on at 155 MPH. There are no governors in the DME chips, and no other speeds at which it comes on (I tested with the stock BMW chips). I special ordered a little black box (actually it’s gray, but “black box” sounds better :-)) from a shop in Germany (thanks Carl T.) and wired it directly into the EML wiring harness according to the instructions. In all fairness, the instructions were a poor translation from German, and I am VERY VERY glad I had the Electrical Troubleshooting Manual to fall back on. The instructions were accurate, but the language difference left for some ambiguity.
All wired in and looking good, I had no “practical” place to test its operation. I was not willing to chance the open road. If the engine cut out (as opposed to engaging the governor) I did not want to chance loosing control at 150+. I opted to take the car to my chip-tuning place and have it strapped to the Dyno. Much safer there if I was to loose power steering, etc.
The little box worked perfectly! I hit 194 on my speedometer before I ran out of gearing. I suspect that because I have some speedometer error my actual speed was between 180 & 190, but who is counting.
I wanted this modification more for peace of mind – now the decision is mine as to how fast the car will go (physics aside). I was not comfortable with someone else deciding how fast I could go. Besides, right after I got the car, I was playing with a corvette. The vette had me up until 115 or so, and then I was able to catch up. I nosed ahead just at 130. Then at 155 the governor kicked in. Needless to say, the vette had aftermarket chips and kept going. There is a highway around here, highway 5, which has really long straight runs of road. If there is no one around, the only risk is yours. If you get caught, you go straight to jail, so it’s not something I do often, or even recommend; but I was pissed that someone else decided how fast I could go.
Anyhow…that was my excitement yesterday.
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