Who has done foot throttles?

I want to put a foot throttle on my mower. I was wondering if I could hook it directly to the butterfly turner thingy, that way I could get rid of my governer because it doesn't seem to work right. Has anyone done this? Did it work?

yes it could be done but i myself would recommend it as its a good chance of blowing the engine.

I loosened up the governer ,put a stiffer spring and ran a shortened motorcycle cable.

Use the governor, it will save the engnine.

Ya it can be done but its easy to blow up the engine.

Pretty hard to blow a ungoverned stock engine. Took us 45min, at wide open throttle, no governor, to break a 11.5 briggs. It only stopped running them because it ran out of oil.

Some of the older techumsehs would throw a rod.

No governors on our 5 tractors. Just use common sense, and don't rev the crap out of it. They will last a long time.

We also have foot throttles.

Stretch44875 wrote:

Pretty hard to blow a ungoverned stock engine. Took us 45min, at wide open throttle, no governor, to break a 11.5 briggs. It only stopped running them because it ran out of oil.

Some of the older techumsehs would throw a rod.

No governors on our 5 tractors. Just use common sense, and don't rev the crap out of it. They will last a long time.

We also have foot throttles.

Totally agree with that I have them directly hooked up on all my mowers and just use common sense and have never had an issue

Heres why I never mess with a govenor....I had a twin, Ungoverned...Running outside my shed...Thick 1" walls...I heard my engine start to rev abnormaly high, and next thing I knew, I heard a LOUD chink...Kinda like 2 peices of metal getting hit together..and this 18lb (at least) flywheel, shatters and at least 16 fragment shot through my wall, and one came within a 3" shot from me and beddind itself in the wall...

Ouch, that sux, glad u survived. Sounds like it suddenly leaned out.

As am I, I just hope everybody how hard it is to shove that much metal through that much plywood, and honestly, the extra speed isnt worth your life...

I've had engines suddenly over rev before, usually when they are running on the bowl and the fuel is shut off, scares the crap out of me, even on engines built to run 6-12000 rpm

**Important note.**

Governors can be tweaked, If you want more power band but don't want to blow it, try tweaking the weights or linkage. Or on older motors try trimming the blades. You guys all seem to have abundant engines to play with.

Experiment Damn it. Inquiring minds want to know.

this typically goes against everything I believe in, but I kind of want to adjust the governor linkage on murray, just to be able to Blip it when it gets bogged down.I don't want to be able to take it really high but, just a little extra oomf would be nice once in awhile. my engine was built with an ohv piston and rod... so it should handle a little bit more. Not the flywheel, thats still original.

I have had the governor get stuck wide open on a 10hp generator. Blew lights and power strips out in the house. Bone stock engine, still over revved. Took it apart and the gear with weights broke. Engine had less than 100 hours.

If the governor is causing problems then i would disconnect it and hook your throttle directly to the butterfly. But i would make a adjustable stop for it right at the butterfly so that you can change it depending on what engine rpm you want.

I think the point stretch is making is that a governor is not a guarantee that the engine will not over-rev.

exatly. having the govenor break is my worst fear cause then its bye-bye engine

All you have to do is put a stopper next to that bar that moves the hook tht moves the btterfly on the carburetor.

I was going to post a long diatribe about the design, purpose and issues of the various governor systems, but I figured F*** it, i have to stop being a teacher.

Suffice to say when they fail unattended it can be ugly.

Motorcycle cables work well for foot feeds, low friction, easy pull

you do need stop being a teacher

Says the 15 year old to the 46 year old.

I'm guessing he may have something to say, that others find useful.

MurrayMayhem wrote:

All you have to do is put a stopper next to that bar that moves the hook tht moves the btterfly on the carburetor.

If you adjust the carburetor to keep RPM's down, you will have no power under load.

Governors are there for a reason, and work well. When you set the throttle you are telling the engine to run at a certain rpm, regardless of load. So if you are in neutral, throttle is halfway on, it's about 1500 rpm. No load, governor only opens throttle a little bit, to make 1500 rpm's

If you put it in top gear and let out on clutch, the engine is going to be under a load. Governor will try to keep the RPM's at 1500, so it opens the throttle, anywhere from a little more, to all the way, to keep the RPMS up.

Problem is on a racing tractor, you let out on the clutch, and the governor will open the throttle all the way when it sees the load. This makes for some scary full power times, such as when you are trying to creep up a steep hill. It won't rev any faster, but it will put full power on if you bog it to 1000 rpms, until it reaches the 1500rpm you set it at.

No governor, gas is directly linked to throttle, is a demand power setup. You control how much power the engine is putting out. Much easier to feather your way out of a tuff spot.

If you are really worried about overrevving, you can get a RPM limiter, that cuts the spark if the engine exceeds a certain RPM

but what about adjusting the governor, you could adjust the spring to achieve a different rpm but leave the governor intact so was still functional. I might play with this a little bit this summer and maybe put a tiny tach on my console so I can keep an eye on engine rpm.
if it blows, oh well I'll just find a bigger motor to throw on there.

You can adjust the governor for higher RPM's, but it is still going to be RPM based, not power based.

Diesel governors can be power based, and just limit top rpm. Some are RPM based, such as for generators and tractors. All diesels have governors built in, and they are tuned for each application.

Lawn mower ones are all RPM governors.

I did mine through the governer set up just by putting in new springs. It's an opposed twin so by putting a stronger spring in it pulls the governer and the butterfly more. I would recommend going through the governer because doing it straight to the butterfly could blow it.

For my personal preference, a foot throttle is a MUST. Especially when I was running a 6hp motor. I kept the governor, but I had it tweaked high enough that it would float valves anyway. But this gave me the option to rev it to the moon and dump the clutch to get me out of a hole or up a hill. I'm running my 12.5hp B&S with a foot throttle straight to the carb now. No need to rev it too high, but I do have the option if and whenever I need it. So, I say hell yeah!