Originally posted by Fast-Ford
When the chasis are equally prepared it becomes an engine race, then with horsepower or CI restrictions it becomes a torque race.
Lets try this to take the spin off domestic focus:
Take two Honda race teams runing civics at a short track. Both teams meet the NA restrictions and weight restrictions (face it, in a racing series you won't see a cement truck race a civic so weight isn't as far off as people think) If one team builds a better engine because of their combination that can put out more torque, they will get off the corner faster and be more dominant.
When you have a series with restrictions and equal chasis, it becomes a race to build the best engine with big torque. You simply can not make less torque and win. Then when all cars are on par with torque, the team with the car that sticks to the track the best, and has good luck will win.
You've got it backwards. Torque=force horsepower=power over time. Example: L98 vette vs LT1 vette The cars are geared identically, and car weights are within a few pounds, so it's a good comparison
L98 HP 250 @ 4000 Torque 340 @ 3200
LT1 HP 300 @ 5000 Torque 340 @ 3600
Both "feel" similar but in a drag race, the cars would launch more or less together. The L98 might have a slight advantage due to its peak torque occuring a little earlier in the rev range, but that is debatable, since the LT1 has a wider, flatter curve. From somewhere in the mid range and up, however, the LT1 would begin to pull away. Where the L98 has to shift to second (and throw away torque multiplication for speed), the LT1 still has around another 1000 rpm to go in first, and thus begins to widen its lead, more and more as the speeds climb.
There are numerous examples of this phenomenon. The Integra GS-R, for instance, is faster than the garden variety Integra, not because it pulls particularly harder (it doesn't), but because it pulls *longer*. It doesn't feel particularly faster, but it is.
It is better to make torque at high rpm than at low rpm, because you can take advantage of gearing.
In order to make torque at higher RPM's one needs...........
MORE HORSEPOWER