i was reading the target lock action and in detail and noticed this bit

"A ship can maintain only one lock. If a locking ship already has a lock, before the chosen object would be assigned a lock token, the ship’s former lock token is removed."

if you already have one lock and you perform the the target lock action while having r3 do you need to remove the existing lock? Does r3 increasing your limit 2 allow you to ignore this?

It would apply if you were trying to get your third lock. The 'one' in the first sentence is replaced with 'two' by R3.

The card clearly says you can maintain two. spaceinvader has it right that the 'one lock' from the base rules becomes 'two locks' with this upgrade.

Might help in future misunderstandings:

http://infinitearenas.com/xw2rules/index.php?page=golden-rules