HP vrs TQ, I need real answers
03-12-2009, 08:08 PM
#1
4th Gear Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Alberta Canada
Posts: 1,432
HP vrs TQ, I need real answers
Hello all,
Ok here I go. There is the guy who picks up our dirty coveralls and brings the clean ones at the shop is kinda a ****. He's all rice, but he seems to think that its all about HP and TQ means nothing except for the inital launch. Well the way I figure this is the two work together but you want more TQ because TQ will help you accelerate all through the revs.
Now what makes this worse is at the shop (HD Mechanic shop) only 3 out of 10 mechanics agree.. All older and more knowledgeable IMO
most said stupid things like TQ is for diesel engines that pull big loads and it doesnt do much for acceleration.. REALLY YOUR A JOURNYMAN???
My dads car has 680 lb/ft TQ and he likes to tape a 100 dollar bill on the dash and if you can grab it 1-3 gear its yours... so far no takers
so really TQ Vrs HP???
I need as plain and true as possible and technical is good too!
but bottom line IMO TQ wins races, HP sells cars
Ok here I go. There is the guy who picks up our dirty coveralls and brings the clean ones at the shop is kinda a ****. He's all rice, but he seems to think that its all about HP and TQ means nothing except for the inital launch. Well the way I figure this is the two work together but you want more TQ because TQ will help you accelerate all through the revs.
Now what makes this worse is at the shop (HD Mechanic shop) only 3 out of 10 mechanics agree.. All older and more knowledgeable IMO
most said stupid things like TQ is for diesel engines that pull big loads and it doesnt do much for acceleration.. REALLY YOUR A JOURNYMAN???
My dads car has 680 lb/ft TQ and he likes to tape a 100 dollar bill on the dash and if you can grab it 1-3 gear its yours... so far no takers
so really TQ Vrs HP???
I need as plain and true as possible and technical is good too!
but bottom line IMO TQ wins races, HP sells cars
03-12-2009, 08:39 PM
#2
5th Gear Member
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Elizabeth City N.C.
Posts: 2,790
03-12-2009, 08:44 PM
#3
3rd Gear Member
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location:
Posts: 939
There's an old saying, "Torque gets you moving, horsepower keeps you there".
When your dad hits the gas, that's torque. When he cruises through the traps, that's HP.
HP cannot be measured. it's a calculated number based on the torque curve. HP was first used as a marketing tool way beack when. Some dealer was trying to sell farm machinery to farmers. They understand HP, because it takes so many horses to pull the plow.
Your laundry guy is young and ignorant. Get your dad to take him for a ride, and he'll change his tune.
When your dad hits the gas, that's torque. When he cruises through the traps, that's HP.
HP cannot be measured. it's a calculated number based on the torque curve. HP was first used as a marketing tool way beack when. Some dealer was trying to sell farm machinery to farmers. They understand HP, because it takes so many horses to pull the plow.
Your laundry guy is young and ignorant. Get your dad to take him for a ride, and he'll change his tune.
03-12-2009, 10:34 PM
#4
1st Gear Member
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Toms River, NJ
Posts: 70
There's an old saying, "Torque gets you moving, horsepower keeps you there".
When your dad hits the gas, that's torque. When he cruises through the traps, that's HP.
HP cannot be measured. it's a calculated number based on the torque curve. HP was first used as a marketing tool way beack when. Some dealer was trying to sell farm machinery to farmers. They understand HP, because it takes so many horses to pull the plow.
Your laundry guy is young and ignorant. Get your dad to take him for a ride, and he'll change his tune.
When your dad hits the gas, that's torque. When he cruises through the traps, that's HP.
HP cannot be measured. it's a calculated number based on the torque curve. HP was first used as a marketing tool way beack when. Some dealer was trying to sell farm machinery to farmers. They understand HP, because it takes so many horses to pull the plow.
Your laundry guy is young and ignorant. Get your dad to take him for a ride, and he'll change his tune.
HP absolutely can be measured.. Most chassis dynos measure HP and plot it over rpm to derive torque figures.
The real answer is that the 2 figures measure different things. HP is a measure of work, torque is a force. One way to think of it is that HP is a measure of torque over time. For anyone that has taken calculus, HP is a 1st integral of Torque. For any given torque value and RPM, there is a corresponding HP value.
The real figure that matters is the area under the curve. Peak numbers are only a snapshot.
03-12-2009, 10:37 PM
#5
1st Gear Member
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Toms River, NJ
Posts: 70
Additionally, lack of torque can be made up with gearing,, numerically higher gears increase torque, you can't create HP out of thin air like that.
Given proper gearing, I'll move a tractor trailer with a geo metro engine. It will have a ridiculously low top speed (gear limited obviously) due to the lack of power.
Given proper gearing, I'll move a tractor trailer with a geo metro engine. It will have a ridiculously low top speed (gear limited obviously) due to the lack of power.
03-12-2009, 11:05 PM
#6
5th Gear Member
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: City of God
Posts: 2,358
lol @ the $100 bill story .... is that for real??? cause I have heared it plenty of times and I have been in cars with 600tq + and adjusting my camera on the windshield under heavy acceleration and I could still get there, $100 bucks at 650 would be easy to grab lol tell your dad to come pick me up and if I cant get it I still win cause I got to ride in a beast of a car obviously.
I do have long arms though
I do have long arms though
03-13-2009, 01:34 PM
#8
5th Gear Member
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Orlando, FL
Posts: 2,031
Having sufficient bottem end torque or gearing to multiply torque is very important on the launch, without it the engine will be bogged down to a low hp range or you will be left having to slip the transmission from the engine to keep this from happening (which means utilizing less engine power). No one will argue that 60' time is very important on making or breaking your ET.
Starting from a stop brings in some different variables as car speed, gearing, and rpm are all directly related. You can't just start moving a car at 5k rpm from a stop without the rpms coming down once the tranny, engine, tires are all hooked up (unless you are spinning the tires, slipping the transmission, or have some extreme gearing). Spinning tires is not a winning option as you will be lowering the coefficient of friction, and extreme gearing is not a great solution as you only have so many gears in a car which can leave you with very far apart gearing (which causes lots of rpm dropping between gears which usually leads to less average hp for that gear).
I'd really like to see how the guy that wrote the article analyzed his ET times to take in account starting from a stop and how that effects engine rpm, transmission slippage, gearing, and shift times.
03-13-2009, 03:53 PM
#10
2nd Gear Member
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: TX
Posts: 355
Gearing is one of the keys to 1/8 mile racing .
One thing I have been thinking about lately is different engine tunes and what rpm the torque peak is at compared to the hp peak.
someone may already do this but think about this.
#1 take a tune that has the lowest rpm torque peak .
#2 take a tune that has the highest rpm torque peak .
#3 take a tune that has the lowest rpm HP peak.
#4 and finally take a tune that has the highest rpm hp peak.
now take all 4 dyno sheets and lay them over each other .where ever one tune out preforms another use that tune for that rpm range . so the final tune will have 2 peak torque peaks in the lower rpm range and 2 peak Hp peaks in the higher rpm range .
with fine tuning the transitions could be fairly smooth from one tune to the other.And finally the finished tune should have more torque and hp than any one tune by itself.
One thing I have been thinking about lately is different engine tunes and what rpm the torque peak is at compared to the hp peak.
someone may already do this but think about this.
#1 take a tune that has the lowest rpm torque peak .
#2 take a tune that has the highest rpm torque peak .
#3 take a tune that has the lowest rpm HP peak.
#4 and finally take a tune that has the highest rpm hp peak.
now take all 4 dyno sheets and lay them over each other .where ever one tune out preforms another use that tune for that rpm range . so the final tune will have 2 peak torque peaks in the lower rpm range and 2 peak Hp peaks in the higher rpm range .
with fine tuning the transitions could be fairly smooth from one tune to the other.And finally the finished tune should have more torque and hp than any one tune by itself.