Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Car shut off @ 110 MPH!?!?!?!

Originally posted by TheGreatOne:

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Even if it did shut off the motor, wouldn't it be spinning anyway from the car moving that fast and being in gear? And even if it were a battery problem wouldn't the motor continue to run? Seems to me once the car is started it should keep going without the battery...


And WHY in moses' name wouldn't your brakes work? THey work regardless of whether or not the engine is running.

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hes right the engine will continue to run if the battery did mine blew up and the car ran, got in it next mourning nothing. i jump started it and it worked no problem. although the battery was blown. didnt know this until i wanted to get home from school.

The thing that most likly "killed" your car is the govenor(sp?) This little pain in the @$$ is what caused me to lose my 1 and only race, i had my @$$ handed to me by a 95 regal coupe as for the other problems associated with that i'm not sure.

First I am not preachin, I am just sayin geez how dumb can it be.. the VERY reason I think it is stupid to drive that fast on a public street happens and people still can't see how stupid it is.

IF you wanna die, there are ways you can do it without killing ME, you don't have to drive like a f'n a-hole because some dumb@SS pissed you off.


second

real mature to drive like that when provoked is childish.

I have *NEVER* tested my speed limiter on the highway. If I want to drive that fast there are places to do that. AutoX, race tracks whatever.


now for the engine problem

Do you have some sort of rigged induction system? Ram-Air or Cold Air?

When the speed limiter kicks in you coulda been running way lean and stalled the engine.

Try this.

Go to a race track during the day and do a few laps to see.

This series of posts contain an amazing amount of pure speculation.

I assume that you haven't chipped your PCM since the first thing most people do when they go down that foolish road is remove or bump up the governor or rev limiter.

A few facts from a Powertrain engineer:

1) The PCM will NEVER intentionally command the engine to stop. This would not be safe under most circumstances, even to protect the vehicle from damage by abusive driving (it is in Ford's interests to allow the vehicle to be damgaged in preference to the driver since the vehicle damage results in lower liability). The PCM may prevent the engine from starting due to the anti-theft strategy, but it will not intentionally cause the engine to stop. It is possible that the PCM reset under these driving conditions. Generally, the engine has enough inertia to continue running through a reset sequence, but if the reset was caused by a KAM corruption, the engine may stall before the it has a chance to adapt to the unusual driving conditions.

2) The circuit that drives the low oil pressure light is NOT a PCM input. The PCM in a Contour does not know the oil pressure or even the status of this light.

3) The various lights came on because the engine stalled. The CEL/MIL only reports emissions concerns, not driveability concerns (e.g. engine stalls, which actually reduce emissions). The PCM may log some driveability DTCs, but they will not light the CEL/MIL by themselves. Also, it is unlikely that your PCM is designed to detect any driveability concerns during abusive driving conditions. The PCM strategists and calibrators have better things to do with their time.

4) Assuming that you are driving a manual transmission vehicle and left it in gear, a briefly intermittent battery connection will not cause an engine stall, especially at those speeds. The inertia of the engine is enough to make such a concern, if present, appear as a misfire or hessitation. The same is probably true of an automatic, but the transmission might briefly downshift to second and I'm not sure what would happen then.

5) Power brakes rely on manifold vaccuum to power the brake booster. If the engine stalls, you will only have power brakes for a fairly brief period, especially if you are speeding. After that, you will still have brakes, but without the boost, so you'll have to stand on the pedal and hope you have a long straightaway for stopping the vehicle.