JHizzle

damn nice write up, going to consider this when making my decision

 

949

nice!

Floorit

Why is torque the big player here?? Horsepower is all that matters when it comes to all out acceleration. Max torque is of little importance, max horsepower is where you would ideally want to stay nearest in the powerband.

formsim

Max hp for most is the top end of the power band. Not everyone rides around at 6k.

Max torque for the 2.0t both modded and un modded is in a much more reasonable 2-4k range and is what most of them are happy with compared to the hp numbers.

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FortyOzSpartan

Torque=F
W=F*d
P=W/t
P=F*d/t
W=PT

F=force
W=work
d=distance
P=Power
t=time

We looked at torque here because we wanted to know at a particular moment what force was being applied to turn the wheels. Force is what causes acceleration. Remember, we know that because F=m*a where m is mass and a is acceleration. Then, we basically compared those moments of force across the power band for different gears to see if it was worthwhile to shift early. Horsepower tells us how much energy is used to apply that force across a distance for a certain amount of time. We're not concerned with how much energy we're expending here, we're concerned about how much force our transmission is translating to the wheels.

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JBgotM

"All out acceleration" is based on available tractive force to push the car forward. To get tractive force, you use the torque vs speed curve. Look at the information earlier in this thread. When engineers design an engine, they design and tune the torque curve, not a hp plot.

Peak horsepower numbers are mostly for dyno queens and bragging.

Floorit

While I agree that an engine produces torque, and that horsepower is a formula derived from torque, I disagree that horsepower is only for bragging. Horsepower in the simplest terms, is your engine torque's potential to accelerate the car at any given engine speed. If you had a car that made it's peak hp at redline, let's say 7000 rpm, but made it's peak torque at 4500 rpm, when do you shift for opitmal acceleration? Do you want to keep the engine as close as possible to 7k or 4.5k rpm?

Obviously around 7k rpm would keep you accelerating at your engines max potential even though your engine is producing much less torque than it is at 4.5k rpm.

formsim

Torque makes hp not the other way around. if a car makes 500hp at 7k but 200hp at 5k which alot of big turbo small displacement cars do, the gearing to get the most acceleration from the car would be heavily modified to take advantage of the entire torque curve(or as JBgotM says torque vs speed curve), not the peak hp number.

When someone says i got a 500hp car i'd have to agree that its nothing more than bragging rights.But i would also mention when someone says their car makes 500tq at 3k its also just bragging rights...

Acceleration and most effective use of the "tractive force" can make a less powerful cars outshine both on track and drag strip a similar more powerful car.

I always did love the gearing on the Z06 :P

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Floorit

^^Agreed.

In my post however, I clearly stated horsepower is a formula derived from torque, not sure why you think I meant torque is derived from horsepower.