[Vwdiesel] something worth trading the A4 in for

[David Schwarze]

Sorry, but HP is what moves the car.  Period.  Torque does you no good 
if you don't have some RPM to go with it, and at that point you are 
talking about HP (because HP is basically torque X RPM).

Torque is only useful as a measurement of the specific output of the 
engine at a particular RPM.  Good for measuring efficiency, not 
particularly useful in determining how fast a car will accelerate.

The more HP you have, the faster the car will accelerate.  Rapid 
acceleration is a simple matter of commanding the motor to the RPM which 
provides maximum HP and keeping it as close to that RPM as possible. 
Notice that I did not mention torque anywhere in that sentence.

The advantage of a diesel is that it makes relatively high HP at low 
RPMs... so at low RPM you have an advantage with the diesel.  Great for 
towing.  At high RPM however the diesel loses it's advantage and high 
RPM is where the most horsepower is made.

Consider two cars - one making 60lb/ft peak torque and 100 peak hp and 
the other making 100 lb/ft peak torque and 60 peak hp (with typical 
torque curves).  Which do you think will win a drag race?  I will bet 
every dime on the car making 100hp, and you should too, unless you want 
to lose your money.

-David

lbaird119 at aol.com wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Terry Briggs <vbriggs at stny.rr.com>
> To: Vwdiesel at vwfans.com
> Sent: Sat, 5 Jul 2008 9:36 pm
> Subject: Re: [Vwdiesel] something worth trading the A4 in for
> 
> 
> 
> to use an old racers saying, HP doesn't win races, torque wins races. 
> Torque gets you moving, hp allows you to maintain speed once the torque 
> drops off. The curve of which determines how fast the end result is.
>     
> 
> 
> GLAD to hear someone else say something like that!
> 
> I've said for years that HP is what you brag about, 
> 
> torque is what turns the wheels.  :-)  It's SO hard
> 
> to convince someone that a smaller hp diesel CAN 
> outperform a larger HP gasser because it has MORE 
> 
> torque!
>      Loren
> 
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