Now you're getting into power. Power is essentially the ability to do work. Work is applying a force to an object to make it move a certain distance.

When talking about engines in our system of measurement, power is defined in hp.

hp = ((lb/ft) * rpm)/5252

So to make power you either need to increase torque or make the engine spin faster. As F1 engines are limited in displacement and thereby torque, they instead make power by spinning up to 19,000 rpm.

 

Torque is a force that can be measured. Horsepower is calculated from torque, not measured.

HP = (torque*rpm)/5252

 

That makes things a little more clear. So on a lighter car, the chassis would most likely buckle from the force being exerted on it if it had rediculously high torque.

 

That depends. If the car is hooking up well, then yes, the frame can buckle or twist. Most of the time you'll just spin the tires or blow the tranny.

 

Ok, thanks. My original questions have been satisfied

 

Yes or no.

If you have a crazy light car made out of exotic materials that are able to withstand the forces exerted on it by a drivetrain which produces a high amount of torque, then no.

What that post means is that if you take the same amount of force and apply it to two objects of different mass, the object with the smaller mass will accelerate more.

Torque exists in an engine at all rpm. But since a car spins its wheels and thereby the engine, the engine needs to keep spinning with the wheels. That's why your car has a transmission with more than one forward gear, so the engine which has a limited range of operating speeds can work over a much larger range of operating speeds of the wheels.

To accelerate a car that is already moving, you have to continue to apply force to it. If no force is applied to an object that is in motion, it will remain at a constant speed. So to have a car which can accelerate for any extended distance, you need to have an engine which produces torque over a broad range of engine speeds.

If you had a car which produced a massive amount of torque at low rpm but not much at high rpm and wasn't able to spin very fast, you would just get a big initial surge of acceleration and then it would stop accelerating.

The key is that for a good 1/4 mile time or whatever it is you're measuring, you need to keep applying a net force over the entire distance being traveled.

 

That's why superchargers are good for something. They produce a steady torque band much like the i-VTEC over a broad range of RPM's. However, in the K24, once you hit 6,500 RPM, the torque band drops dramatically.

 

Exactly. A flat torque curve is exactly what you want for maximum acceleration.

 

basically i think it is....

torque gets you moving

horsepower keeps you moving

 

No, they both do both.

People associate the term "torque" with low rpm. A motor can make a lot of torque at high rpm and be really crappy off the line.

Torque is force, horsepower is a calculation based on force and rpm.

So to modify your colloquialism, "low rpm torque gets you moving, high rpm horsepower keeps you moving."