Torque vs. Horsepower

fedorfan

Ive got a question, which is more powerful and better to have in auto racing, torque or horsepower? Ive gotten mixed answers and wanted to ask some people who know their stuff.

Moridin

torque is force times distance, while horsepower is a unit of power. Which would you rather have in which types of races?

fedorfan

Which one will make you go faster, alot of torque or alot of hp?

chemisttree

Enzo Ferrari was once quoted as saying "Horsepower sells cars, torque wins races". Obviously Mr. Ferrari believed that torque was most important of the two provided that both were present in sufficient amounts. With lots of turns, acceleration, and braking, torque wins hands down IF there is sufficient horsepower. Without the horsepower, diesel trucks would win auto races. Without torque, jet-powered cars would win all the races. By the way, I believe a jet powered vehicle holds the land speed record... of course it just went straight and probably didn't handle well in the turns!

brewnog

To ask which is more powerful is like asking "which is faster, speed or weight?".

The answer to which is more advantageous in racing is not a clear one. Moridin alluded to the fact that different types of racing will require different balances of torque and horsepower. To complicate matters, different engine configurations will develop different torque and horsepower characteristics across a range of engine speeds.

So an engine setup which develops lots of low-down torque may be preferable for a race with lots of tight corners, acceleration, and gear changes, and an engine with a lot of high-end power may be more suited to a race on a high-speed ring type track.

The answer is not a clear one.

cesiumfrog

Got to say, torque seems like an odd criteria for an engine (regardless of race style), since a car always has a gearbox.. but despite this it tends to always be listed among the "vital stats" of any supercar.. Does the torque just provide insight into the engine characteristics at various rpm, or am I misunderstanding something else?

russ_watters

torque is reported at the engine, not at the wheels, so the gearbox is irrelevant to the reported value. Sure, you can always lower the gear ratio to increase the torque at the wheels, but if you redline at 2mph, you haven't helped yourself any unless your goal is to power the space shuttle mobile launch platform...

cesiumfrog

Sure, but in the ideal world (where no energy is lost in the gearbox), if two engines (with different torque) output equal horsepower, than both should accelerate at the exact same rate (even if one does have to shift gears at 2kph) and reach the same top speed (if both cars have the same aerodynamics). Right?

turbo-1

No, the engine that is able to to deliver more torque will be able to kick your butt to the finish line faster.

russ_watters

No. Every time you shift gears the torque delivered to the wheels drops, so the acceleration drops. Those two cars will only have the same acceleration for about a tenth of a second.

And the most important gearbox loss here (which I didn't mention before) isn't about friction, it is about inertia - since being in a lower gear means the rpm increases faster for the same acceleration, there is more dynamic loss in the drivetrain (due to rotational inertia), so even if the torque at constant rpm is the same, the acceleration would be much, much lower. Even in the ideal case, you still have to account for it because it has a huge impact.

I think my mom's '68 camaro was a 3-speed. Your first gear is like 2nd or 3rd gear today. The torque is so high on those old v-8s, they would still tear off the line.

cesiumfrog

What you're saying seems to be that I'm correct (noting the ideal situation I specified, think massless continuous variable transmission); the only difference is the losses that occur between the engine and the wheels (obviously from real life experience, time lost on the clutch early-on is a major factor).

This is interesting because it seems to demonstrate horsepower governs maximum speed (circular track), but torque influences acceleration (drag racing).

Despite my experience with and without lightened clutch-plate flywheels, I'm not convinced a slightly-torquier engine spins much of the drive train significantly slower; it seems (rather than the rotational inertia of the drive train) the biggest problem (in the real world) must be the number of gear-changes required (and their timing, ie. how fast before the first one). I get the impression that torquier engines will tend to remain useful over a much wider range of rev's. Is it that all engines redline in around the same place, so torque is a direct measure of the range of useful revs (ie. how many gearchanges before a particular speed)? Or would the difference still be pronouced if the engine with more torque also redlined sooner and so changed gears at all the same speeds (since obviously low-rev power importantly decreases clutch-riding waste, especially at low speeds)?

joema

This is a frequently-debated topic in automotive performance circles.

Given a conventional geared transmission, supposedly best momentary acceleration is at peak wheel torque. This comes from F=MA, arranged as A=F/M. Acceleration is highest when force (torque) is highest.

Based on this viewpoint, optimal average acceleration would happen if an infinitely-variable, lossless continuously variable transmission kept the engine at torque peak throughout the acceleration run.

A contrary viewpoint is best average or sustained acceleration is obtained by operating the engine at peak power. You want the highest power-to-weight ratio. From this viewpoint, a hypothetical perfect CVT would keep the engine at peak power rpm, not peak torque.

Of course there's no such thing as a perfect CVT, but considering that helps determine what's theoretically possible, hence the underlying physics.

I don't know the definitive answer, just mentioning the two viewpoints.

russ_watters

Uh, ok...... I guess if your incorrect scenario were correct, you'd be correct.

But your incorrect scenario is incorrect for more than one reason.

-It is incorrect because it doesn't consider the mass of the drivetrain and leaving that mass off is just as big of a sin as leaving the mass of the car out. An "ideal situation" never leaves out such an important factor.

-It is also incorrect because while torque at the wheels is the torque at the engine multiplied by the gear ratio, speed is the rpm times the gear ratio, times the circumference of the wheels. Since the shift point (whether you use a cvt or a standard transmission is irrelevant) is at the redline of the engine, in order to get the same acceleration out of an engine with half the torque, you'd need to be able to rev it to twice the rpm.

Apply some quick math:

Engine a:
Torque: X
Max RPM: 5000
Gear Ratio: 4:1
Wheel Circumference: 4 feet

Enging b:
Torque: 1/2X
Gear Ratio: 8:1
Max RPM: 5000
Wheel Circumference: 4 feet

The torque at the wheels for each is X*4 = 4x, 1/2X*8=4X.

But the speed of the car with engine A is 5000/4*4=5,000fpm when it needs to shift,

While the speed of the car with engine B is 5000/8*4=2,500fpm when it needs to shift.

They reach 2,500 fpm at the same time, but after that, the car will accelerate much faster with engine A. That much is true.

fedorfan

Ive gotten torque=acceleration and hp=top speed. Well, I want to ask something, if you have alot of torque all over the powerband especially up on the top end does that mean while one car is topped out on the top end you`re still accelerating?

Stingray

That's certainly true. It comes up so much in some other forums I frequent that I've thought about writing up a canned response. But I haven't done that yet, so here's another try:

People often confuse power and torque because car enthusiasts tend to (unknowingly) use these words for different concepts. This is a physics site, so I'm going to go ahead and use the definitions from physics.

The full-throttle behavior of an engine can be approximately modelled as a device which has some function associated with it. This fixes the torque it can produce as a function of engine speed (rpm). This function is not at all constant, although engineers often strive to make it as flat as possible.

Regardless, given the torque function, there is an associated power . So if the torque is known at all speeds, the power is known at all speeds (and vice versa). You can't have one without the other.

Despite this, it is common practice for engines to be advertised only in terms of their peak torque and peak power. The engine speeds where those conditions may be found are also usually given. The peak power is very important for reasons I'll get to later, but the peak torque is essentially useless all by itself. The reason is that the gearbox can multiply the torque to (essentially) any amount whatsoever at an appropriate speed. But an ideal gearbox cannot change the power.

Staying with the ideal case, the maximum forward force that a car can produce is entirely determined by the power its engine is producing and the car's overall speed. So fixing speed, maximum acceleration is always reached by maximizing the engine's power output. It is the job of the transmission (and driver) to use the gearbox to keep the revs as close to the engine's power peak as possible if full acceleration is desired.

Modern transmissions have many closely-spaced ratios, so except at very low speeds (at the bottom of 1st gear), an engine may be kept close to its power peak for as long as desired. That means that a well-designed car that is driven well may produce a force . This depends only on the peak power (and velocity), and explains why the power-to-weight ratio is such a good predictor of acceleration performance.

Having said that, the torque peak is not completely irrelevant. Its position relative to the power peak is usually a good indicator of the size of the car's "powerband." Essentially, how high do you have to rev it in a given gear before the engine really gets going? Having a wide powerband is extremely important in everyday (or moderately aggressive) driving where you're not going to redline in every gear. It makes the car feel much more powerful even if the maximum performance is the same. Of course, a wide powerband is also useful if your have a poor transmission or don't want to shift as much.

Russ, differences in drivetrain inertia between reasonable designs are not usually not a huge effect. They're certainly significant, but I don't think I'd include them given the approximations already inherent in this sort of discussion.

JeffKoch

Power is proportional to torque at any RPM, so the original question doesn't actually make sense. I think what you mean is, is it better to have a broad power band ("torquey") or a narrow one ("peaky"), assuming the peaky motor puts out more maximum power. If your shifts took zero time, if you had as many gears as you wanted, and if could keep the engine operating at the same high rpm all the time, then a narrow peaky 2-stroke-style power band would be quicker if it puts out more peak power. Factor in limited human abilities, and a broad power band becomes more useful to more people even if peak power is down - so more people would go faster.