Governor Part For Older Briggs Engine

[Blower85]

I use a non-contact Tachometer that uses a small piece of reflective tape. Works great on small engines. I got one that also has the mechanical tach portion for shafts and things like that.

Depends on what you want to spend but for under $30 you can get this one with several different adapters for measuring RPM. There are even cheaper ones too.

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Non-Contact Tach

I have an Extech 461895 which is expensive when new at $339!! But you can find them used on EBay like I did and they run about $40-$60.

One very interesting thing I found is every mower I checked was running slow compared to the factory HP ratings. I usually need to increase the RPM's 100-250 rpm to get them up to full speed.
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Interesting. Wondering how your unit might compare with something like this, available on Amazon for $17. I am not a mechanic and whatever I end up with would probably be used only a few times to check RPM:

 

[Blower85]

Follow up on my original thread:

I ended up trying this inexpensive tach, bought on Amazon for $14. Works by wrapping a wire around the spark plug wire, securing it, and checking rpm. It is showing 4200-4300 rpm at max throttle with no load, which confirms my suspicion that the engine was running fast. I believe normal rpm should be no greater than 3400-3600. Seems interesting that this occurred after installing the new spring, so I am wondering if there is some recalibration I need to do to lower max rpm. In the meantime, I needed to mow my lawn, so I reduced the throttle a bit to avoid engine damage.

If any of you could point me to a resource or provide some simple step-by-step guidance on how to address this, I would appreciate it very much. I was thinking that perhaps the governor arm may need to be adjusted, as the rpm does go down when I apply light finger pressure to it. Goes back to full speed when I release the pressure.

Thank you!