how do i remove the govenor on a 5 hp briggs and stratton and will it give it more speed?

Answer 1

There is no governor on most engines, it's all in that crazy little rigmarole around the carburetor, near the throttle there exists a lever with a spring that moves semi-independently of it, this affects rpm's but they are all different, I'm used to the Kohler design but I've done this on Honda 2-cyclers as well, and I am sure B&S can be done.

Before you do anything at all, I would highly recommend changing oil and use a Full Synthetic 10w-30 oil such as Mobil 1, you stand a fair chance of doing serious damage to the engine, the Synth helps prevent it some.

Then, you'll want to empty out the gas tank or however you want to do it, but you need to start running Super premium 93 unleaded to control detonation at high rpm's, cheap 87 octane is a dirtier fuel and can cause certain instabilities with high rpm combustion.

You might also check into replacing the spark plug with an Autolite Double platinum, if yours takes the Champion RJ-12YC then you would use Autolite's APP5224.
All of the above will at least help get your engine RUNNING right, consider replacing air and fuel filter as well, it needs to be properly maintained first.

Then what you do is deal with that stupid spring, sometimes there exists a second or third hole for hooking it up, or replace it with a slightly smaller or slightly stronger spring, and you may have to adjust it further or it might be something else.

Another way you might can do it is by loosening 1 or 2 or 3 bolts that hold your throttle assembly where the throttle cable hooks to, sometimes there exists an adjustment there or a set screw ...

Either way, some kinda spring or screw adjustment and usually you have to slightly move or alter some component to do with the throttle assembly and your engine will ping the redline guaranteed lol but it may scare you and it can damage it, so you take your chances.

Answer 2

depends on the engine and the only thing i'd be afraid of is that the engine may over-rev itself if you dont control the throttle manually. The reason the governor is there is to prevent damage from too much RPM and so when you remove it you take the life of the engine in your hand every time that you start it.