Rick Carter

For MK

placer

Good post. I remember about thirty years ago we were discussing the torque/horsepower thing at work and a co-worker said torque was an engine's ability to do work, which turned on a light bulb for me.

Thanks.

hacker-pschorr

I love that channel, one of the few I subscribe to, and that pretty much summarizes most everything Kibort has said in the HP / TQ threads.

Peak torque or boat loads of torque feels fast since that is what puts you in the back of the seat. My neighbors diesel with 1,000 ft/lbs of torque feels like you're going light speed....until you actually look at the speedometer. I'm not saying it's slow for what it is, but you sure as hell feel like you're going much faster based on the forces applied to your body.

I'm glad he mentioned CVT transmissions since that absolutely settles the debate. CVT cars accelerate at max HP, not torque.

Rick Carter

We have a Honda HRV with CVT and mashing on the gas keeps it in high revs, interesting driving through the mountains.

rnixon

That make no sense. You feel acceleration, which is most directly calculated using the engine's output power (and your current speed).

GregBBRD

This guy touched on how torque and horsepower are interrelated, but still got tied up in theory, not practical application.

With regards to an internal combustion engine, any discussion about increasing torque or increasing horsepower is moot, unless gear ratios become part of the discussion.

GT6ixer

You may have stopped watching before the 4 minute mark. From there on he talks about how gear ratios play into the discussion.

Wisconsin Joe

Right. Acceleration is a force. Usually expressed in "G". But while it's numerically expressed as "meters per second squared" (m/s^2), it's not really a 'time' value.

Once time is applied, it is more 'Delta Vee', or change in velocity. And to get that, you have to apply the acceleration over a period of time. And that is what horsepower is. Torque applied over a period of time.

And to take it a step further, the torque curve of a motor comes into play, where you aren't generating a constant amount of force as the car accelerates. Which is why you need a transmission with multiple gears. Electric cars don't have this issue, as electric motors produce full torque from zero RPM to whatever limit they have. That's why a Tesla can outrun just about any car on the road.

GregBBRD

I watched the entire thing...a couple of times.

He begins to touch on the importance of gear ratios in relationship to the torque and horsepower of the engine, but skims over it and moves on.

In our world, with our super "long" gearing, trading midrange torque for high rpm horsepower has to be looked at, very carefully.