Government Speed Regulator

hey, i just got a 06 cobalt ls two door coupe and im goin to be putting alot of money into it.turbo, exhaust, intake etc. but the other day i was on the highway and at about 112mph the car started choking out. and sputtering like gas was being shut off to the engine. then i tried it two or three more times, and each time at that speed it starts it again.im going to want to race it eventually..... so i've heard of Govt. speed regulators on the new cars and was wondering if the LS model has it and if so, how much it costs to get it off.

lol your stupid, dont ask that dumb question. GM (not the goverment) set the speedlimiter at 112MPH because thats what GM Engineers with all there degres and schooling have found to be the highest speed that car can travel at safely. Number one biggest reason is the tires arent meant for higher speeds, you go much faster than 112MPH, and the tires will literally explode on you. Number 2 being the suspension, not designed to go that fast, will have problems with the car feeling very light almost like its floating, and number 3 is the brakes, your car wont stop very well and will most likely render your brakes useless that those speeds.

There is no way to remove it.

yeah it is not the government regulator.. itis a GOVERNER< cuz it governs the speed of your car. it is nothing you can just take off, it is programmed into your computer, it shuts off the fuel to your motor. it is there for a reason, some parts in your car can only spin or move so fast before they want to come apart are what not. like your tires, you would need speed rated tires, rims that can handle the RPMs(rotations per minute) your trans probably cant take any more then that speen either. it is set so that is the fastest you can go before you have problems. and you said you want to turbo your car... really dumb idea:nono: read my post in.. 'turbocharging LT'

Governors are set where they are because that is maximum rated speed of the tires the cars ship with. No other reason.

The cobalt can handle much higher speeds, GM sets these to your tire ratings. You have the LS, your car shuts off at 105 mph, not 112. The SS's and some LT's shut off at 120.

god you guys are misimformed.

The SS Supercharged has the governer set at 158MPH. And no Tires arent the only thing, while they are a big thing, they are not the only thing. Reread my first post if you disagree.

Jayson your wrong, tires are the reason why theres a governor on these cars. GM will not program a car to cut out at 105 for no reason.

If you think its not the reason then explain why an LS with steelies and continentals is limited to 105 and an LS with alloys and Pirellis is limited at 125.

THANK YOU MR. SMARTY PANTS

dude come up with some kind of proff from GM saying the speed limits of the cars and ill believe it. I know GM sets the speed regulator at what the stock tires can handle, that doesnt mean the car can go faster than that or that it was designed to go faster. Theres alot more that needs to go into a car to make it go faster. Mine handles like a champ at 130+MPH, i doubt you could say the same if you removed the speed limiter on a base model cobalt and ran it that high, but its unlikely that it can go that fast in the first place.

Dude i fucking work for GM. It can handle over 160, they limit it for safety and they place the limit by the tires they put on the car.

You got proved wrong then made another argument, face it, YOUR WRONG

what do you do at GM? and ill stick by what i say, no Base model cobalt was designed to go over the stock speed limiter. The brakes arent, the suspension isnt, the engine itself wont go much faster than 120MPH tops.

Jayson you dont know much do you. A base cobalt engine, the 2.2 has been hitting 1000+ horsepower. The engine can go faster than you think. Why dont you do some research on a vehicle before you talk. Base cobalts with the "sport package" go 125 with plenty of go afterwards.



And I'm a certified GM Mechanic thank you, so take your head out of your ass

your the reason why no one likes GM dealerships, full of dumb mechanics. Im not gonna argue with you anymore. If you think its safe to take a stock cobalt past 125 MPH, which i dont see it going that fast or much faster, then so be it. Once you get to 125 MPH try to stop quickly, or try and make a swerve to avoid something. Ill be laughing at your blood spot on the highway.

And I'm a certified GM Mechanic thank you, so take your head out of your ass

Oh I love these pissing matches :lol:

Hey Kyle (aka graphicassult)
According to your profile you are a 19 year old student...how come you say you are a certified GM mechanic?
What are you certified in?
What dealer do you work at?
What is the dealer code or org #?
What is your TMS ID #?

I want to know because GM does not have certified mechanics, they have certified TECHNICIANS.:rofl:

I have read up on limiters a bit and one major issue for the speed being set at a certain limit is because certain components in the drive train can only handle the centrifugal forces of the rotating mass, and wave lenghts of the vibrations created by the distortion of the parts at those speeds.....

Namely the drivelines in the rear wheel drive cars are actually moving in an oval at thier center point and can only with stand a certain amount of distortion before bending to the point of breaking.......Talk to any drive line shop about the characteristics of a drive line at free way speeds and they will say the same thing.

FWIW, GM used to set the fuel cutoff MPH based on teh speed ratings of the OEM tires. That was the case at least through the 1994 model year, and may be the most significant reasoning used still today. A 1989 F-Car with soft suspension and 15" "H" rated tires had the fuel cutoff programmed at 118 MPH. The same chassis, same driveline, and same transmission equipped with 16" "Z" rated tired had the fuel cutoff set at 254 MPH. Would the car go that fast? No. But it would also not have an ECM programmed limitation on MPH - Because of the OEM tires installed.

Further, a blanket statement like "It can handle over 160" is a bit misleading. It could be argued that a Cobalt is not safe at anything over 95 MPH. If you've never had a wrong-wheel-drive car go airborne all on its own right in front of you on the expressway (after catching air off the side of a truck) you really should try it sometime. It's not a pretty picture, especially when you're following at about 100' and closing.

Without some significant suspension enhancement, undercar airflow control, and a driver who knows when the rear end starts to get light, driving in three-digit territory with a poorly biased, unbalanced, and poorly sprung 1,800 pound go-kart is not safe - At least not enough so to let every Tom, Dick, and, Harriet drive them that way.

Where is my buddy graphicassult?
I need some questions answered.





Ever notice when you call someone out, they disappear from the forum

I got a good idea,somebody go disconnect the vss and the wss and take her out and we will find out the outcome.Anytakers?I had to.

Thank you GMmerlin for calling out graphicassault, im sick of people bitching about the governor on cars. you see it in every forum where every 16 year old is trying to get rid of it. Look they put it on for multiple reasons, 1 yes the tires are only rated for such high speeds, but also the brakes can only handle so much load before over heating and warping. Also the suspension is designed to handle corners/bends at certain speeds because of the forces that would be acting on the car after the governor are so high the up lift on one side of the car would cause such a lift that the car would flip. so if you plan on going at such high speeds you need to upgrade many components on your car if you want to do it the safe way.

And before someone tries to call me out on this post, i go to school for mechanical engineering, i understand the capabilities of the components and have also helped in the design, construction and driving of a fsae racer, so i do have a good understanding of racing and cars. if someone wants to call me out on something here feel free but u better back it up with good information and not some bs that you just made up to make yourself seem smarter.

man i hate little punk kids like that, i really do. And im gonna make it my mission not to let this forum turn into the sorta rampent rice and crap talk that goes on in the cavalier section.

Bro i completely agree with u, dude i may drive a sunfire but im sick and tired of having this civics with a soup can coming up next to my car thinking they can take me, it may be a stock sunfire but im not an amateur driver and love smoking them on the streets.

What is funny is ever since I called him out, we haven't heard from him.

My take on the max speed issue is this.
IMHO it is set way to high to begin with. The national speed limit is 70, lots of people drive much faster than that..they are armed with the false sense that they know what they are doing and know how to drive.
You are right, just about every 16 year old wants to defeat the speed regulator so they can go fast (and some 40 year olds too).
If you are racing the vehicle (meaning the vehicle is not street legal or not intended to be driven on the street) I have no problem with changing it.
Remember, you are not as good of a driver as you think you are.

Well stated " Merlin"!!!!

Maybe he took what I posted and tried it,who knows.No, really,he is a GM Mechanic.Is that the new PC term for clean up kid?I'm not up on this politcally correctiveness.

My firebird has no gov. It will go as fast as 350 horses will take it, if i was to push the skinny pedal to the floor and hold it. Does this mean i do it? hell no that would be stupid. What would it prove? It would prove how stupid i was if a tire was to explode at a high rate of speed. Im not out to kill myself or anybody else, so i chose to use my brain and keep my driving safe by obeying posted speed limits.

If you want to go that fast, get a car thats safe at the speed you plan on going, and DO IT ON THE TRACK!!! If you drive down the highway at +100 MPH, your as stupid as possible. You dont deserve a car, or a licence to drive one. IMO

In defense of shadetree mechanics, ive met "certified" techs that dont know their ass from a hole in the ground.

In defense of shadetree mechanics, ive met "certified" techs that dont know their ass from a hole in the ground.
And vice versa :rofl:

And vice versa :rofl:

No doubt.

Most of the diagnostics i do become harder when "do-it-yourselfers" try to fix a problem and start taking apart things that are totally unrelated to the actual problem. I had one not too long ago, a man took out his fuel pump, the relay for it and the cars PCM and the injectors and fuel rail, regulator and all, because a bad battery post.

Im not certified, ive learned what i know "hands on" mixed with some natural talent. From what i have been told the first week or so in auto tech school, they teach you to clean a battery post.

Any uncertified mechanic apprentice with a thousand hours under his belt would have sniffed the problem out pretty fast, right off the flatbed that drug it in.

Another example i will give, is a "certified" tech couldnt get a ford explorer to run. It had been to several "certified" shops but he braved it anyways. A week after messing with all kinds of stuff it still wouldnt run. He said it gave him actual nightmares, thinking of having to swallow the several hundered dollars worth of labor he had spent trying to fix it. He didnt mess with the PCM because he heard it had already had been checked.

As a friend i took a look. I removed a plastic cover, and found the problem instantly. The PCM was unplugged! sombody at the other shops it had been to unhooked it to get it tested, and when they reinstalled it, they forgot to plug it back in. I plugged it back in, it started up and ran perfect. He heard it start and ran out of the office saying "what was it"?! I showed him and i saw a blood vein in his eye pop, i swear. Whatever the other shops replaced fixed it, but they didnt get too far with the PCM unplugged.

I don't know if i should share this information or not, but if you really want to disable the speed limiter, all you have to do is unplug the speed sensor. You're going to need an ODBII scanner to clear the trouble codes though.

I don't know if i should share this information or not, but if you really want to disable the speed limiter, all you have to do is unplug the speed sensor. You're going to need an ODBII scanner to clear the trouble codes though.
Untrue.

Untrue.
You don't think that by unpluggin the speed sensor, the car's governor would be disabled? How can the car's computer govern speed if it doesn't know how fast the car is going? And I know many people who have successfully done this. I may not know that much about cars, but I do know that you can definetly do this on some cars, if not all.

You don't think that by unpluggin the speed sensor, the car's governor would be disabled? How can the car's computer govern speed if it doesn't know how fast the car is going? And I know many people who have successfully done this. I may not know that much about cars, but I do know that you can definetly do this on some cars, if not all.

By disabling the VSS, you're taking the dynamic control out of the computer and relegating it to table operation - closed loop vs. open loop - less than optimal and don't forget the computer knows what speed the vehicle SHOULD be travelling at anyway due to engine RPM and gear range of the transmission, among other variables programmed into the PCM for that vehicle - things such as axle ratio etc.

Also, as others have stated, disabling the governor is an act of stupidity. First, to exceed the governor speed, you are committing a crime when doing so outside of a racetrack - in Arizona this is a felony and can result in a two year prison stint - up to 25 years if someone is injured as a result.

By disabling the VSS, you're taking the dynamic control out of the computer and relegating it to table operation - closed loop vs. open loop - less than optimal and don't forget the computer knows what speed the vehicle SHOULD be travelling at anyway due to engine RPM and gear range of the transmission, among other variables programmed into the PCM for that vehicle - things such as axle ratio etc.

Also, as others have stated, disabling the governor is an act of stupidity. First, to exceed the governor speed, you are committing a crime when doing so outside of a racetrack - in Arizona this is a felony and can result in a two year prison stint - up to 25 years if someone is injured as a result.

You are probably right about the table thing, and you're definitely right about it not being smart or legal, but that still doesn't change the fact that it does work on some cars. The two cars i know it works on it a 2001 Cavalier and a 2003 SVT Cobra. Go test it for yourself if you don't believe me.

Drive the speed limit, stay alive and keep others alive.


Don't use those drugs that make you think a cobalt is safe at over a hundred and drive either. ;)

You don't think that by unpluggin the speed sensor, the car's governor would be disabled? How can the car's computer govern speed if it doesn't know how fast the car is going? And I know many people who have successfully done this. I may not know that much about cars, but I do know that you can definetly do this on some cars, if not all.
The speed regulator "aka Fuel cut off" is a parameter set in the software of the PCM. It uses 2 inputs RPM and VSS disconnect one, you still have the other,

The speed regulator "aka Fuel cut off" is a parameter set in the software of the PCM. It uses 2 inputs RPM and VSS disconnect one, you still have the other,

The PCM would only be able to calculate vehicle speed from the RPM in an automatic, correct? There's not very many manual transmissions that I know of that tell the PCM which gear they're in.

I have a 07 Cobalt Ls with regular steel wheels and hubcaps and mine governs out at 123mph. All factory, no modifications done. :cool:

The PCM would only be able to calculate vehicle speed from the RPM in an automatic, correct? There's not very many manual transmissions that I know of that tell the PCM which gear they're in.

I'm sure an engineer would have thought of that and limited the engine RPM in the event that there was no VSS signal. In my Grand Am 2.4L, 70 MPH is 3,000 RPM, so that would be very drivable if limited 4,000 RPM or so... or if it's not like that, hopefully an engineer will stumble upon this and implement this idea to keep idiot teenagers from killing themselves and whoever gets in front of them. There's no way to lie to the PCM about engine RPM and still have it run :biggrin: If you're driving over 90, in most cases you're an idiot (I've done it on long, straight, flat sections of highway on clear days when there was absolutely NO other traffic... just one benefit from living in Iowa). If you're trying to figure out how to go faster than 120 on public roads, you should be executed before you kill someone else!

Damn!!!, I just learned that, some ppl who think the are certified"mechanics" aka technitions, lol, dont really know what they are taking about. And as far as the whole limiter thing...why would you need to go over 100mph, most races take place below that, 80 to 90 mph anyway!!!! I admit when i was 16 i complained about my, ride hitting the limiter, but then i realized my car didnt function properly at those speeds!
I understand all sides of the conversation, accept for Mr. Mechanic.

It doesnt matter the reasons why the limiter exists, just the fact that its there to tell you, to slow the fuck down before you kill everyone on the road!

Thats just my two cents.........for what their worth!

Different cars have different speed limitations. Some cars go too fast already for how they are made. These cars with small sealed type wheel bearings and underized ball joints wich are sealed also shouldnt go faster than a uhaul trailer.

If you drive a car thats limited to 100 MPH, maybe its because its a piece of crap. go get a different car if you dont like it. Get a legal car with no speed limiter and the hardware involved to back it up.

Most of you are wrong. There are many different factors that determine at what speed a car is limited to. I know for a fact that all VWs are limited to within a few mph of 130 mph, depending on the model.

I own a 2007 Chevrolet Cobalt SS N/A. Btw N/A means naturally aspirated. It has the 2.4L. After '07, this car and motor was called the Sport. It does not have a limit of 128 like one of you said because i have taken my car northwards of 140mph. I don't know the exact speed that I have gone because that's where the speedometer stops. Also, the LS and LT are limited to 112 because it is not made for speeds higher than that. The motor and transmission are more than capable of doing that, but as one of you said, the suspension, tires, rims, brakes, and many other parts are not made to handle a higher speed. According to most information I have gotten from my buddies at the GM dealership, the SS N/A is limited to a speed of 153 MPH, the SS S/C is limited to about 160 MPH. The lower models are limited to about 115 MPH. I am not sure about the turbocharged models. But both SSs are more responsive and controlled at 130 than the LS and LT are at 100.

I'm sure an engineer would have thought of that and limited the engine RPM in the event that there was no VSS signal. In my Grand Am 2.4L, 70 MPH is 3,000 RPM, so that would be very drivable if limited 4,000 RPM or so... or if it's not like that, hopefully an engineer will stumble upon this and implement this idea to keep idiot teenagers from killing themselves and whoever gets in front of them. There's no way to lie to the PCM about engine RPM and still have it run :biggrin: If you're driving over 90, in most cases you're an idiot (I've done it on long, straight, flat sections of highway on clear days when there was absolutely NO other traffic... just one benefit from living in Iowa). If you're trying to figure out how to go faster than 120 on public roads, you should be executed before you kill someone else!

You, my friend, are an idiot. Your grand am is about as safe at 50 MPH as many performance cars these kids drive are at 100 MPH. It is not the job of the government and the car manufacturers to limit the speeds of their cars, its the job of the people who drive them. Cars, like mine, can stop in a matter of seconds at 100 MPH. Your grand am probably would kill someone in an emergency situation at 70 MPH.

as for speed limiters im sure tires play a huge role in it but i think the rest of the car is taken into consideration also, i know my cobalt ls (My beater) feels horrible at anything over 95 and at 112 or whatever it definatly doesnt feel safe so im sure either the car is built on the pricipal it cant go over that or they take that into consideration when programming that.

And to the op... If you are trying to race please buy a different car because this is definatly not a race car, and if you cant afford a different car then get a different hobbie. Not to be mean but its just reality, ive been racing for about 2 1/2 yrs now and with the mods you listed you will have yourself in a racing class way over your head and your cars.