[hawk2100n]

If I'm not mistaken, in this car the VSS is just an induction type sensor that counts the pulses on the final drive. Since your needle seems to be bouncing around then you must be getting an intermittent reading. I would trace back the wires and especially look at the connection at the sensor and then the connection at the MID. One or both could be causing a short.

Also if the computer is not getting a normal reading from the VSS it may affect the transmission. I am not sure if the transmission is electronically controlled but if it also relies on this reading to guess what gear to re-engage into from N then it would default to 1st or 2nd gear and cause the high revs. That is speculation but I think a very plausible scenario in your case.

The distance parameter in the MID might come from the speed and it interpolates between speed readings in the event of sensor failure but it doesn't have the same bit of code on the speed side. Depends on who coded it originally.