\'65-\'66 Police 140MPH speedometer?

Good points, Beo! Did I forget to say that 140MPH would look exceptionally good on the dash? LOL. And that's interesting info about what went into "certification" of indicated speed on Law Enforcement applications. And here all along here I thought they were just writing tickets because of my looks.

As far as true certification for my own application, I do not intend to write any tickets to my fellow Galaxie owners, and we all know the other brands can't go fast enough to break the speed limit anyway. So I'm not interested in that, particularly.

My trans is the 3.03 HEH-CC, differential ratio is 3:1, tires are P235-75/R15.

I'm guessing Rayell (and several others here, also) can peg his speedometer with plenty to spare given his 2.75 differential, particularly if he's running larger 15" tires.

Yeah, Beo, I've also heard my fair share of blather by officers testifying about how exact their equipment is, mostly radar units! Got kind of boring hearing the same old blah, blah, blah from those guys.

I'm pretty sure my toploader has the factory speedo gear for the typical 3.25:1 ratio and the equivelent of G78-15 tires, which would tend to underestimate the cars speed. Don't get me wrong, I use 4th gear alright, but my engine is turning only 2600 rpms at about 80MPH (which is how I wanted the car set up, as a highway driver not a dragster) as indicated by a friend pacing me in another car with correct speedometer.

My idea is to have a graphics artist of my acquaintance generate a frisket that would allow me to remark the speedo plate to 140MPH and substitute the proper speedo gear in my transmission to correctly display the true (but not "certified&quot speed. It would be nice to know what the 140MPH speedometer looks like so the artist can get the appearance right, or nearly so.

It should look just like the regular one...except for 2 more "tick" marks. Its not like they use more space, the needle sweep is or should be pretty colse to the same...all that they do is tighten up the spacing.

I put a 140mph speedometer in my '83 Mustang ( that was back in the good old days...when the Feds thought that putting 85mph on the speedometer was the solution to speeding ). The spread was the same, but the markings/numbers were closer together. They can change the internal gears to match the layout. There are still a few distributor and speedometer shops that can calibrate or re-calibrate a speedometer. Or you can buy an adapter, it fits between the cable and the driven gear...it can be adjusted to make the reading true.

I figure anything over 130 - 140mph is more about aerodynamics than about horsepower.

LKF (Little know factoid...might even be true!), they haven't made new speedometer calibration machines since the 50's. All of them, that I know of, are heirlooms, passed from father to son or good buddies. They are seldom sold or seen on the open market.

Something to look at: Not Ford...
http://www.corvettespecialtiesofmd.com/restoration/CFMag7_04.pdf
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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Beoweolf on 3/22/06 7:26am ]</font>