I have this argument daily with most members of my team and alot of my friends as well. Some say HP is more important others say Torque is more important.
My take on this is this...If you have two identical f bodys say 2 1991 Chevy Camaro RS's both with 305ci engines only diffrence in the cars would be one was tuned for more horse power then torque and the other tuned for Higher Torque then horse power. I strongly believe that if both these cars were to race on a drag strip then the car with higher torque will win every time. What do you think?

 

HP I say torque is over rated.My example when I switched from TPI(slp runners,edelbrock base) to the Stealth Ram this is the only change I droped 3-tenths in the 1/4mi.ONE I was able to hook up better with less low end torque and TWO with the extra upper RPM HP the motor kept pulling.

 

I'll let you know once I go from my torque-tuned peanut cam to my LT1 cam and LT1 intake. Should give me a TON of HP up high and take away a little of my torque. I'm guessing my car will be faster with more HP because these cars don't have enough of that. Oh yeah, and my torque curve with the LT1 intake and cam will be perfectly FLAT from 2k to 5k

Torque is more fun, and wins off the line, but when you're talking about getting to highway speeds or more, horsepower is needed. I bet I'd lose to a Civic on the highway Beat the hell out of my buddy's Talon yesterday though in just under a 1/4

 

TORQUE is BY FAR more important my friends.
Remember this... torque gets the mass rolling along... and horsepower keeps the mass rolling along.

I'm not discounting the importance of horsepower; however, have you ever wondered why big blocks crush a comparable small block ?
Because big blocks are torque monsters, that's why.

When you start factoring in nitrous, superchargers, and turbochargers... that changes the ballgame x 10.

To answer the question though, torque is more important than horsepower IMO.

 

Ultimately the car with more horsepower will win a drag race.
Althou torque is important, a car with "more horsepower" also has more torque at the upper end of its power band.
After the intial launch when the cars are shifting through the power bands of each respective engines output the one with more horsepower will be applying more average torque for longer over the distance and will soon pass the other lower-power/ high(er) torque car.

The higher horsepower car will run even better with a higher gear ratio which will all but eliminate any torque
advantage the "torque car has" once the two cars launch.

Unless the torque car has a massive amount of more torque, the horsepower car will win.
Since both are the same 305 cubic inches the hp car will win.
The only way the hp car could loose is if it was vastly under geared.
Another way the HP car could loose is if say the extra hp was achieved by just installing a large cam which would add more peak hp but would generally degrade the low and mid range torque output of a basicly stock engine otherwise. this engine would need a *much higher* rear gear ratio to get it into the upper band to show its advantage. Without the rear gearing change it would be a mutt. basicly a mismatched combination.
Big blocks usually beat small blocks because they have both more horsepower and more torque.

 

Althou torque is important, a car with "more horsepower" also has more torque

Sorry your wrong. I seen Ferraris and other sport cars with tons of HP (over 400hp or over 300 hp ) and still have **** for Torque. Like the 200s... ANd the L98 has more torque then some exotic cars

 

you're taking it out of context.

 

They are both essentially the same damn thing. HP is just a calculated factor of torque. But some people say torque is more important because the peak occurs lower and will accelerate the car faster from a stop. Others say the HP because it determines how fast your car will run and go.

But the real answer is HP under the curve is what really matters. How gives a crap a peak this peak that. Does your car always run at peak power, no way!!! Given two exactly the same cars but with different engines. The car with the most HP under the curve will be the fastest, even if the other has twice the peak horspower. What your really want to get the most HP under the curve is a flat torque curve.

 

It's amazing how many people dont have a clue what they are talking about.

 

ANY engine that has"twice the peak HP" will have "more hp under the curve" also.

Think about it. Horsepower is directly related and calculated from torque @ RPM. a Motor with twice the horsepower than another will have a ton more of average torque, especially at the upper band .

It is capable of twice the work. Its going to make the car faster.

 

Isnt it funny how dark_knights thread lasted longer than he did?

 

Well than explain how ever Ferrari will run faster than
13.9@99MPH as you clain your L-98 TPI corvette runs.

If you were to actually check the hp and torque rating of the 400+ HP Ferrari's you'd find they have tons of torque relative to the size of the motor and certainly tons more average torque over a much wider band especially at the upper rpms band resulting in more average and peak horsepower.
You could even install that Ferrari motor in your heavier GM car and it will still run faster. (may need a rear gear change to match the engines power band to the cars weight.)

Humm lets see a 5.7 liter TPI motor puts out 255hp and 345Ft lbs of torque.. Let see what a simular sized Ferrari motor puts out.

5.7Liter ferrari specs

Enough said...

Now lets look at a smaller but powerfull 3.6L motor

3.6L specs


If you were to install this motor in your car replacing the stock TPi motor it would be a ton faster.
For best output... It would require a rear gear change as the motor makes peak HP at 8500rpm. It would also require a high stall converter if an automatic is used.
It would be good for 113MPH in the quarter mile and require a 5.82:1 rear gear to match the engine to the chassis. would probabily run mid to low 12's in the quarter mile ... easily high 12's with bad traction.

Even with....less torque

 

heres my outlook on it ......torque will get you going durring a race its what carries you 1/3 of the way down a track then the hp takes over and wins it for you ......

 

Thats not true! How do you figure that? An engine with a super peaky HP curve will not have a huge average HP or HP under the curve. I could build an engine that only makes power above 15000rpm and has nothing below.
Huge cylinder heads, intake, valves that have no velocity and really impede flow will do it.

HP is a measure of power.

Torque is a measure of force on a lever.

 

That's my thinking as well. I'll make multiple runs at the track both before and after the intake/cam swap, and I'll post as many of the number as I can. I'm not sure was numbers Union Grove gives you though (i.e. 300ft, 600ft, 1000ft, etc.). Then again, its not really fair to do a comparison for "HP vs. TQ" with my swap because the LT1 intake will give me a flat torque curve..

 

I don;t think so

Think about what you just typed.... huge this and that and no flow.... its not going to make any power.

 

Both are important

Heres somthing off the good old www.vetnet.org that sums it up.

A very good example would be to compare the current LT1 Corvette with the last of the L98 Vettes, built in 1991. Figures as follows:


Engine Peak HP @ RPM Peak Torque @ RPM

------ ------------- -----------------

L98 250 @ 4000 340 @ 3200

LT1 300 @ 5000 340 @ 3600


The cars are geared identically, and car weights are within a few pounds, so it's a good comparison.
First, each car will push you back in the seat (the fun factor) with the same authority - at least at or near peak torque in each gear. One will tend to *feel* about as fast as the other to the driver, but the LT1 will actually be significantly faster than the L98, even though it won't pull any harder. If we mess about with the formula, we can begin to discover exactly *why* the LT1 is faster. Here's another slice at that formula:


Horsepower * 5252

Torque = -----------------

RPM


If we plug some numbers in, we can see that the L98 is making 328 foot pounds of torque at its power peak (250 hp @ 4000), and we can infer that it cannot be making any more than 263 pound feet of torque at 5000 rpm, or it would be making more than 250 hp at that engine speed, and would be so rated. In actuality, the L98 is probably making no more than around 210 pound feet or so at 5000 rpm, and anybody who owns one would shift it at around 46-4700 rpm, because more torque is available at the drive wheels in the next gear at that point.
On the other hand, the LT1 is fairly happy making 315 pound feet at 5000 rpm, and is happy right up to its mid 5s redline.

So, 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 (again pretty much by definition, looking at the figures). 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. As long as the revs are high, the LT1, by definition, has an advantage.

Another example would be the LT1 against the ZR-1. Same deal, only in reverse. The ZR-1 actually pulls a little harder than the LT1, although its torque advantage is softened somewhat by its extra weight. The real advantage, however, is that the ZR-1 has another 1500 rpm in hand at the point where the LT1 has to shift.

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.

A final example of this requires your imagination. Figure that we can tweak an LT1 engine so that it still makes peak torque of 340 foot pounds at 3600 rpm, but, instead of the curve dropping off to 315 pound feet at 5000, we extend the torque curve so much that it doesn't fall off to 315 pound feet until 15000 rpm. OK, so we'd need to have virtually all the moving parts made out of unobtanium :-), and some sort of turbocharging on demand that would make enough high-rpm boost to keep the curve from falling, but hey, bear with me.

If you raced a stock LT1 with this car, they would launch together, but, somewhere around the 60 foot point, the stocker would begin to fade, and would have to grab second gear shortly thereafter. Not long after that, you'd see in your mirror that the stocker has grabbed third, and not too long after that, it would get fourth, but you'd wouldn't be able to see that due to the distance between you as you crossed the line, *still in first gear*, and pulling like crazy.

I've got a computer simulation that models an LT1 Vette in a quarter mile pass, and it predicts a 13.38 second ET, at 104.5 mph. That's pretty close (actually a tiny bit conservative) to what a stock LT1 can do at 100% air density at a high traction drag strip, being powershifted. However, our modified car, while belting the driver in the back no harder than the stocker (at peak torque) does an 11.96, at 135.1 mph, all in first gear, of course. It doesn't pull any harder, but it sure as hell pulls longer :-). It's also making *900* hp, at 15,000 rpm.

Of course, folks who are knowledgeable about drag racing are now openly snickering, because they've read the preceeding paragraph, and it occurs to them that any self respecting car that can get to 135 mph in a quarter mile will just naturally be doing this in less than ten seconds. Of course that's true, but I remind these same folks that any self-respecting engine that propels a Vette into the nines is also making a whole bunch more than 340 foot pounds of torque.

That does bring up another point, though. Essentially, a more "real" Corvette running 135 mph in a quarter mile (maybe a mega big block) might be making 700-800 foot pounds of torque, and thus it would pull a whole bunch harder than my paper tiger would. It would need slicks and other modifications in order to turn that torque into forward motion, but it would also get from here to way over there a bunch quicker.

On the other hand, as long as we're making quarter mile passes with fantasy engines, if we put a 10.35:1 final-drive gear (3.45 is stock) in our fantasy LT1, with slicks and other chassis mods, we'd be in the nines just as easily as the big block would, and thus save face :-). The mechanical advantage of such a nonsensical rear gear would allow our combination to pull just as hard as the big block, plus we'd get to do all that gear banging and such that real racers do, and finish in fourth gear, as *** intends. :-)

The only modification to the preceeding paragraph would be the polar moments of inertia (flywheel effect) argument brought about by such a stiff rear gear, and that argument is outside of the scope of this already massive document. Another time, maybe, if you can stand it :-).


At The Bonneville Salt Flats
Looking at top speed, horsepower wins again, in the sense that making more torque at high rpm means you can use a stiffer gear for any given car speed, and thus have more effective torque *at the drive wheels*.
Finally, operating at the power peak means you are doing the absolute best you can at any given car speed, measuring torque at the drive wheels. I know I said that acceleration follows the torque curve in any given gear, but if you factor in gearing vs car speed, the power peak is *it*. An example, yet again, of the LT1 Vette will illustrate this. If you take it up to its torque peak (3600 rpm) in a gear, it will generate some level of torque (340 foot pounds times whatever overall gearing) at the drive wheels, which is the best it will do in that gear (meaning, that's where it is pulling hardest in that gear).

However, if you re-gear the car so it is operating at the power peak (5000 rpm) *at the same car speed*, it will deliver more torque to the drive wheels, because you'll need to gear it up by nearly 39% (5000/3600), while engine torque has only dropped by a little over 7% (315/340). You'll net a 29% gain in drive wheel torque at the power peak vs the torque peak, at a given car speed.

Any other rpm (other than the power peak) at a given car speed will net you a lower torque value at the drive wheels. This would be true of any car on the planet, so, theoretical "best" top speed will always occur when a given vehicle is operating at its power peak.

"Modernizing" The 18th Century
OK. For the final-final point (Really. I Promise.), what if we ditched that water wheel, and bolted an LT1 in its place? Now, no LT1 is going to be making over 2600 foot pounds of torque (except possibly for a single, glorious instant, running on nitromethane), but, assuming we needed 12 rpm for an input to the mill, we could run the LT1 at 5000 rpm (where it's making 315 foot pounds of torque), and gear it down to a 12 rpm output. Result? We'd have over *131,000* foot pounds of torque to play with. We could probably twist the whole flour mill around the input shaft, if we needed to :-).

The Only Thing You Really Need to Know
Repeat after me. "It is better to make torque at high rpm than at low rpm, because you can take advantage of *gearing*." :-)
Thanks for your time.

 

damn it took so long to read that last post im gonna have to go shave now...

 

Also having peak torque and peak HP rpms as far apart as possible will give you the most average power and power under the curve.

 

Flat torque curve. Since HP is a function of Tq and a flat tq curve will yeild a nice steady uptick of HP, I'd say the question is moot. They are one and the same.

 

Dyno page for LT1intake.com

That's an L98 with LT1 intake and aftermarket cam. That's what I'm aiming for with my 305...just not as high as those numbers. Those numbers are in metric as well, but you get the point.

 

1/8th mile the torque motor wins, 1/4 mile the HP motor wins...Street racing (stop light to stop light) Torque will almost always win (lights are less than 1/4 mile apart).

And you can't compare exotic cars to Corvettes, they are usually lighter, smaller, closer to the ground and have far superior suspensions. The exception to this would be the Calloway's, Banks and Lingenfelter Vettes which were built to compete with the exotics in the endurance races.

 

cant agree with you more on that one especially about the exotics vs corvettes....kinda like well i hate to use this but (apples and oranges )..lol....

 

i like and have both but im a 1\8 mile junky so i like ft.lbs. my 400 small block has a really good set up it makes max ft.lbs at 2000rpms and holds most of it up to 5200rpms .it only lost like 35ft.lbs the hole time. do to head work cam work intake and carb as well as more.

 

This question is very poorly worded, and highly loaded. More torque, more hp? How much more I ask? HP is a product of tq at high speeds. It makes greatly on where this torque is? The transmission used. Is it a 3 speed automatic, with wide gear ratio spacing, causing more RPM drop per shift and needing most of it's power in the mid-range area? a 4-speed manual needing alittle high and narrower power band? Do these engines make their peak torque and hp at the exact same RPM? If you have a well balanced, well planned out build up, that has a lot of torque, it's gonna have alotta HP also, they are very relative to each other. Get extremely specific, than we'll talk.

 

Torque gets you going, HP keeps you going. A friend of mine has an 11.7 LS1 TA. The other day he got smoked off the line by a 2004 Dodge Ram with a Cummins Diesel. The Ram had about 700 TQ but it is at around 800 RPM. The TA got him at about 300 ft and just ran away from him. So, it depends how much more TQ and where in the powerband it is among many other things. But, if two cars are identically the same, there powerbands are the same, one has 300RWHP/400RWTQ and the other has 325RWHP/375RWTQ, I think the first car wins.

 

Some people call torque low-end power and HP high-end power, this is completly wrong and these people have no clue about what they are talking about. This probably came around because peak torque occurs before peak HP.

There really is no difference between torque and HP in an engine. If you have more torque you have more HP, if you have more HP more torque is created by the engine. So when people say low-end torque gets you moving and blah bla blah. What they are really saying is that there is more HP being made down-low.

 

This is by far the most accurate statement in this thread. I suggest some people pick up a few IC engine and applied thermoscience books and do a little research on power curves. A lot of people are wrong on their own version of "power theory". Ya know, john dear tractors have a super flat power band and make 1000+lb ft at the wheels but boy are they slow.........now why is that? Types of motors will drastically affect power curves more than anything else. Even a 600hp chevy 350 is NOT considered a high performance motor when it comes to engine design.

 

Shifty is skippin'... I'm tellin'!

 

If your more street, definetly torque. I have beatin some cars on the street that I shouldn't have. Torque > *, unless your a HiGhWay StAr!

 

yeah for the steet driver its gotta be the torque for sure

 

i believe what is more important is a broad torque curve. if you can maintain your torque higher into the rpm band, that means more hp. maybe in an over-generalization one could say more hp will win but that may or may not be necessarily true. a car with a high, broad torque curve could win over a car with a higher peak hp if the high hp car had to compromise too much midrange torque to get that. it also depends on what tranny and rearend gearing is involved. you cant simply say one will win over the other, its more complex than that. overall, the best scenario is a high torque engine that can hold that torque curve well up in the rpms thus resulting in high hp. the next best scenario (again over-simplified) is a high peak hp car. the loser in the 1/4 mile will usually be the car with great low end torque that falls flat on its face at 4400 rpms cuz it cant breathe.

 

import driver with a nack for "Self expression" voice: "Torque, what's that? I use the sound waves emitted by my massive exahust to propel me to victory!!"

 

Darn I knew I missed someone But yes, you are correct.

 

i say horsepower and torque are both important.Most manufactures supply hp numbers and torque numbers.these two numbers helps u determine where it make power(hp or Kw).for example take two engines both make same power.


1. 300hp 150 torque

2 300hp 400 torque

engine 2 makes more lowend power then engine 1.The best engine for stop and go or drag racing would be engine 2.lets say both cars were geared accordingly for the dragstrip ,and they both started to race from a roll on of let say 50 mph.They both would be neck and neck for the entire race(same car,weight,aerodynamics).

here is another example.

recently i took my motorcycle to the drag strip.I raced a car that did 11.73@115 to my 11.70@119.As u can see i make more hp.the other guy blew me away from the start.I spent the entire track chasing him down and beating him by a nose.

 

There is a fallacy in this statement.

 

ME Leigh,ShiftyCapone i believe br()bert summed it up best.


you two seem to understand it. and i'll send a deserving thank you for the effort to ME Leigh for actually trying to teach them... you didnt have to spend your time trying to show them basic automotive physics.

 

You either copied this from the Vibe message board, or wasted your time writing it in both places... which is it?

NEITHER!!!!

Let me show a few other places where it is...

http://home.fuse.net/pagrosse/torque...omparison.html

http://www.69mustang.com/hp_torque.htm

And finally the place that shows the TRUE author...

http://speedoptions.com/articles/3519/

Anyway;

That "article" (or whatever you'd call it) uses the DUMBEST analogies for comparison. Sorry, but there are A LOT of differences between the L98 and the LT1 other than more HP at higher RPM. Things like cam, intake, compression ratio (9.3:1/10.4:1), etc... that contribute to the 4th gen F-body being a quicker car through the 1/4 mile.

Do the research and you'll find the 1992 L98 was 245 HP@4400 / 345 lbs/ft@3200, and the 1993 LT1 was 275@5200 rpm, yet only 325 lbs/ft@2,400 RPM (This is comparing F-bodies, not Corvettes).

So... do a little math and the TQ average from the L98 (3,300 - 4,400 RPM) = 336.625

The TQ average for the LT1 from 2,400 to 5,200 RPM = 277.5

I know there is a huge difference between the RPM ranges used but that tells you a lot about the two engines and how UN-similar they are to be used in a comparison.

Looking at it another way... the L98 makes 292.44 lbs/ft of TQ at it's peak HP RPM (4,400), yet the LT1 is only making 277.75.

What's neat about the LT1 (if you haven't already noticed) is that the TQ number is VERY similar to the average TQ. Think that's a stroke of luck? No. GM designed the LT1 that way. They had to in order to make up for the loss of LOW RPM grunt of the TPI due to hood clearance issues.

That would be a fair (or at least "more" fair) comparison. While the L98 has MORE torque, it's in a much more narrow RPM range. It was made to be a tire burner, plain and simple, not a 1/4 mile king.

Personnally, I'm a torque person. I believe you should always build an engine for TQ. TQ is the most important in Drag Racing because it IS what accelerates a car. But what's even more important to consider when building an engine is what RPM range the TQ is used in, as well as how much the car weighs, what rear gear is being used, etc. etc. There are waaaay too many variables involved that just saying one is "better" than the other.

Don't get me wrong... HP is just as important, but more important for longer races like NASCAR, Indy, etc. After all, HP is a measure of work over time, not how quickly something accelerates. They want to increase the HP to lower lap times.

I guess the debate shouldn't be "Torque vs. Horsepower", it should be "Low RPM Torque vs. High RPM Torque".

 

id like to point out that high RPM torque is called horsepower. lmao. the "over time" part of it is calculated with RPMs... not the actual time the motor is running.

in drag racing, you're only at high RPMs... you build for horsepower.. why? because you're above (or close to) the magic 5252.



not to mention, if you have horsepower, you can regear for more torque...


but they're the same thing anyway...



and your horsepower or torque curve has nothing to do with how the car drives.
anyhoo, this is one of thoes topics where id have to type a book to get the point across.... soooo..

i suggest everyone with a opinion(or without) on the subject read a few books on it.

 

Funny, I was just drag racing this past Saturday and never went over 5000 RPM.

Horse power or torque, which is more important?

Depends on a combination of variables. Car weight, transmission gearing, and final gearing.

 

Torque is torque, no matter what RPM it is measured at. HP is a calculation made from the torque produced, high RPM or low. Without torque there is no HP to measure.

 

Torque is essentially work.

HP is the rate at which your doing work.

But they are calculations of each other, so for the uneducated agrument here they are the same thing.

 

is this thread ever going to die? Everyone here has a different opinion. Of which only one can be right, and everyone thinks thier one opinion is the right one. Torque is torque, HP is HP. Build the motor for whichever you want. Lower RPM power or Higher RPM power.

 

bingo.

 

Torque is measured, horsepower is calculated.

As stated, torque is a unit of work (force times distance), horsepower is a unit of energy, or the rate at which work is done (work divided by time).

I'm not going to go look for it, but a couple of years ago there was a similar thread and a water wheel was used as an example. Gobs of torque, very, very little horsepower.

As was also noted above, this thread has lasted longer than the originator.

Say "Goodnight, Gracie."