Quote:
Originally Posted by SuqMadiq
You couldn't be more wrong. For straight line performance torque is going to be the determining factor.
{snip}
The reason a high revving engine is good, is because the car can maintain the high torque being applied to the wheels.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Scion FR-S
^ I 'm neither engineer nor physicist but even with mostly-forgotten high school physics something smells oversimplified or just plain wrong with that statement, simply on the basis of dyno charts.
Lots of cars have near-flat torque curves these days. So keeping things simple, if you have a CVT car with a flat torque curve, according to your explanation it would never have to rev faster than say 2000 rpm where the torque curve levels off since reving any higher would provide no additional torque. But of course we all know that is not what happens in practice - stomp on the gas in a CVT'd car and the revs shoot up and stay there until you ease off the gas. That obviously is necessary to get more power to the wheels or the engine would not be programmed to do that (it burns gas more quickly in that state) so torque alone is not the explanation for acceleration. Something about horsepower's (force X distance)/time must come into play here making hp important.
Can anyone offer a more complete understanding? Wikipedia on horsepower was not directly on point.
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Power is the determining factor:
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?p=129241 (see item #3)
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?p=129439 (bicycle comparison)
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?p=78781 (wheel torque examples)
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?p=78973 (math)
Engine torque is also relevant because you don't always drive around at peak power, and you can't make high power at low/medium engine speeds without high engine torque.
Part of the confusion might stem from some people using the general term torque when describing engine torque while others use it when describing wheel torque (and not everyone understands the difference).