Legal Gas Powered Golf Cart
 

This is a question for those of you who have gas powered golf carts that are set to go over the legal 20 mph limit. Our cart was capable of doing up to 25 mph on a flat roadway, so we decided to have the governor set to 20 mph. But the cart now will only go about 16 going up hills. Is this what the rest of you are experiencing with your 20 mph carts?

Another issue is going down those same hills, it is almost impossible to keep it from going over 25 (if I give it half throttle, it will easily go up to 30), which by definition makes it an illegal vehicle. Our mechanic says there is nothing he can do about this.

I would just like to know if this is normal for a golf cart.

You did didn’t mentioned what brand cart and you must have speedometer to be about to judge speed? My Yamaha does not problems maintaining 20 mph speed with governor, yes it may speed up to 23 going done hill or my hit 21 or 22 on slight down grade but stays pretty close to 20 mph. Course if I go down steep hill ( I feather gas pedal or none at all going down steep hill to control speed) it may pick up more speed which I just use the brake to slow it down if needed. I would Put back close way was and use the gas pedal to control speed same thing do in car. I would think slight advancement of the govern control spring would find happy medium point?

What hill are you testing this on?

Speed measurement for determining legality is made on a flat surface.

I’m surprised that pressing on the throttle would increase speed going down a steep hill but I haven’t actually tried that.

My cart works hard climbing out of tunnels and up some of the steeper overpasses. I don’t believe it makes it to 20mph but I’ll have to pay closer attention ext time to see how fast it is capable of going.

2018 Yamaha

Stillwater Trail approaching Odell Circle is the worst one.

Just need to fine tune the govern setting unless they changed engine performance from my 2013? If same system as mine very easy to adjust. Plenty to Utube videos on that. It will run faster in cold mode due to more fuel required used till engine warms up. If you want it to pull hill at 20 MPH the flat speed will probably have to be set around 22. Gravity vs weight going up hill needs little more throttle to maintain speed desired.

If cart governed at 20MPH it won’t climb steep grade maintaining 20MPH due to throttle not in wide open.


Gravity going down hill the throttle pulled back by governor, so it basically free wheeling, only thing slow down is braking.

that's faulty logic. . .

the torque/power created go 20 Mph over flat land cannot maintain speed when climbing a hill, because more torque/power is needed to over come the additional gravitational pull. More torque/power is needed than the engine can provide.

simple. .

the governor on a gas engine is not the same as auto pilot on a car, where the computer uses the speedometer to increase or decrease power to maintain a constant speed. .

The OEM spring in the secondary clutch of gas Yamahas is optimized for golf course usage, without high speed gears. Yamaha’s Personal Transportation Vehicle line of golf carts (the carts used in the Villages) have high speed gears, allowing them to travel at 20 MPH without stressing the engine, but still come with the softer secondary clutch spring found in their line of Fleet Carts. An easy fix is to swap out the spring in the secondary clutch with a stiffer spring and replace the OEM drive belt with a heavy duty belt (G Boost and Kingzilla both make excellent belts). The fix doesn’t increase speed, just torque, which helps with hill climbing. I swapped out the secondary clutch spring in our Quiet Tech last winter, with a green spring from power equipment man .com, and have noticed a significant improvement in hill climbing.

OP, you might want to check the main drive belt, we have a 2017 Yamaha quietech and it was set for 19.5 to 20 mph, then the secondary clutch failed and while in the shop for repairs the tech noted we had the wrong belt, changed the belt and now the cart goes up to 23 mph...

Not really if you under stand how lawnmower engine works, the load isn’t enough to pull throttle wide open due its close to max governed speed.

If I take governor out my cart will accelerate going up all street grade in villages till the engine torqued out or it can’t take in any more air.

I tried heavy duty belt made by gates. It was hard to get on due to the stiff beefed up design, it had extended delay when you stopped and started back up. I didn’t like that even though it would lasted very long time, the down side IMO would be extra wear on clutch face disks IMO due to harder material. did I mention it extremely hard to get off. Nearly impossible. I thought i was going to have remove mount bolt on secondary clutch just get it off.

I buy OEM belts they last about two to three years and I’m careful with jackrabbit starts and taking off in steep grade. I also clean belt and clutch faces every 6 month or so. Even after 2 years or more on the belt starting to separate. I can feel when my belt starting to go bad, feel slight vibration during acceleration knowing it’s either needs cleaned or getting bad enough to change soon.

If you happen to be on MMP and your really old drive belt separates and falls off. Maybe you’ll be lucky if I’m traveling by? I carry extra good used belt, take about 4 mins to install.

2024 Quiettech. Speedo says 19 on flat, 17-18 on slight grade, 22 down long hill but will slow itself up like a cruise control in a car back to 20. Even with a good tail wind and my hat turned backwards for less drag, I can't hit 23. Of course I'm pushing 370 so it struggles

This is a rebuilt golf course fleet cart. I know that they had to change some of the mechanical parts because if you open the governor all the way the cart can easily go over 28 mph on a flat road, but I'm starting to wonder what parts remain from it's fleet cart days. We had to have the secondary clutch replace last year, the starter replaced last month, and just yesterday, we had to have the battery replaced. The battery was from 2017, so it was the original battery in the cart. That is also when I asked mechanic to set the cart so it wouldn't go faster than 21 mph.

We've used Todd Casey from the start and have been very pleased with their service. I'll contact them to see if they think that installing a stiffer spring and a heavy duty belt will solve the.

Thank you for your suggestions.

Why wouldn’t you just reset it to where it was before. Just because it will go 25 mph doesn’t mean you have to drive that fast. You didn’t get you auto set to 65 mph because if the speed limit.