cant rev past 4k
 

2004 regal 3.8 no SC. 196k miles. engine want s to jump out of car when reved to 4k while in park. Have no idea what is happening. Car drives fine and shift normal to me. ideas, thoughts, comments, welcomed.
thanks

The engine seems to bog down when reved to 4k in park. star

that sounds like the rev limiter. In park and neutral, the revs are limited to prevent damage to the engine and driveline components.

Thanks Travis! So this is normal, the rev limiter? Did a forum search and nothing came up about a rev limiter. I'll keep looking, though.

Yeah, its perfectly normal. All modern cars have it. Its just a safety thing so it won't damage anything if the accelerator sticks wide open, for example. Some cars have a higher limiter than others, depending on how the engine is designed, but usually its around the 3500-4000 range.

Although I really don't know why you would regularly rev it to 4K in park, or actually ever do that, but I had an 02 century that had problems similar to this but would not rev much even in 1st gear. It just bogged down and would not go. It turned out to be the catalytic convertor was plugged, I drilled a half inch hole ahead of it and thats when I discovered the rev limiter, it was more like turning the engine off and on real quick when it was functioning though...

I guess if the speedometer went up to 150 MPH and the tachometer went up to 10,000 RPM somebody is going to try to see if they can get it there !