More Horsepower!
 

Lots of folks, on this forum and elsewhere, complain about the HP of our beloved car.

So if you had, say, 50% more HP, what would you do with it? How would you use it? How would it improve the FR-S? And please, no freeway on-ramp stories.

I'd do the same thing I've been doing since purchasing the car last year, drive it everywhere like a Corolla and hit up auto-x (and possibly track) if/when I get a chance to...

The correct answer is still

"it would be perfect with 50 more HP"

Too easy of an answer. Why is 50 more horsepower perfect? What does 50 more HP do?

Gives you some actual power to move the car with authority. You wouldn't have to keep it leaning on the redline just to get some work done. No more sand getting kicked in your face, no sir.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LxTJJT51zr...8/s900/at4.jpg

"It's not about power. If you can't go fast with 90 horsepower, 900 ain't gonna help ya." - Bob Hall, creator of the Miata

https://twitter.com/furmy/status/457174998596079616

But I can go fast with 90hp. And?

I WANT TO GO FASTER!

I'd rather have more torque. The HP on this car is fine.

Much as I am now, I would continue to refine other aspects of the car to suit my own tastes. I love the throttle response of an NA setup so I tried a new FD ratio along with a lighter drive shaft, which did wonders with both throttle response and in gear acceleration.

I wanted to see what effect adding some bracing would have. Boy that actually had a great effect with settling down the front end. Also just fitted the TRD door stabilizers but, I'll need more seat time to get a feel for whether they really did more than add some bling. The change in handling has me now eyeballing other bracing like the STI draw brace.

This article goes into some more detail around flexible STI braces, quite the oxymoron if you ask me, but proof in the pudding was trying the STI flexible strut brace so now I'm a convert.

http://www.motortrend.com/news/subar...s-first-drive/

Overall I'm working to massage the current package to be more efficient at what it does. Its become a really fun learning process for me as in the past I would do some light mods like a cat back + stereo and call it a day, but this car is constantly goading me along to try something more.

You could ask the same thing about better handling and suspension mods. You can make use of the extra horsepower in the same places you need the car to handle better.

HP=torqueXrpm/5252

Torque is what makes HP. More torque would mean more HP.

Unless torque was increased only at low rpm, or the high-er torque engine did not rev as high.

Look at the equation...an increase in torque will result in an increase in HP at any RPM. It's a mathematical certainty.