Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Is the RPM of my car normal?

At idle, when I pressed the gas pedal
to the bottom, the rpm never goes
beyond 4000.

As soon as it reaches 4000, the engine
began to utter a loud noise and the car
began to vibrate violently.

Is this normal to a 95 contour GL,V6,ATX?

The upper limit in the tachometer is 8000rpm,
so I think even 6000 should be normal operation.

BTW: I never tried to press the pedal
so hard when I drove it on the road.

im guessing this is when it is in park? then yes, it is normal.

I posed the same question yesterday and Ghosst said that on my car, which is an ATX, this is normal in park or neutral. He said it is a limiter.

OK!

Thanks for your opinions.

The neutral speed limiter on a Lincoln LS is even lower, about 3,000 RPM. That generates frequent questions.

It's a safety feature to prevent engaging an ATX into drive at high RPMs. I'm pretty sure dropping it into drive at 4K would probably grenade the tranny anyway though... This is just enough RPMs to check out that the secondaries are opening.

This safety feature basically engages the rev limiter which stops the spark until the revs drop to a safe level. When driving, if you shift 1 to 2 manually you will notice the engine will stutter if you let the revs climb above 6750. (Not that you should shift like this, but hey, it could happen.)