3800 rpm Honda gxv120!

So after posting my "before" tear-down  video of the smokey hr214 mower, some of the guys over at "My Tractor Forum" said that Yoshimi was running a bit fast...like a thousand rpm fast! Whoops. So I ran out to Northern Tool and picked up a digital tachometer like this one and hooked it up. After a little  learning curve, this tach was pretty easy to set up; red wire gets wrapped around the spark plug lead, and the white lead gets grounded to the frame. The hr214 sparks every revolution (even during the exhaust stroke), so i left the stock settings in place, but you can also set it for different types of motors (distributor vs. non, etc).

So what did I find? Holy crap, this thing was about to fly apart! The specs for the gxv120 call for about 2,000rpm at idle with th e blade disengaged, and I was up around 3200 at idle, and around 3700 at top speed.

Hmmm...after reading the manual, it looks like the idle gets adjusted at the carburetor via the throttle stop screw, but no dice! Long story short...the breather hose was actually broken off a the block  and had pressed the governor arm as far as it would go-keeping the engine running at top speed. After seeing the breather hose venting to the outside world, I decided to go straight to the tear-down, and spent most of today taking the gxv120 apart. Video of my rev-happy Honda below: