Someone explain me about torque and what makes a car turn?

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Tercel_driver

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I just have a question. THere is a big difference between American and Japanese cars, besides the logo. Japanese cars have a good speed and have a good handling, but American cars have a really good speed but a stinking handling. So I was just looking at the engine torque, and my question is what makes a car so hard to turn, and what can I change to fix it?
 
Well torque I dont know much about, but down force helps turning and tires help as well. But if there is too much torque the car tends to spin its wheels and trys to spin.
 
The torque, I think is the rpm's. It just slipped my mind. I will look into it though when I play GT3 again (I cant right now, bro is watching a movie)
 
Originally posted by Tercel_driver
I just have a question. THere is a big difference between American and Japanese cars, besides the logo. Japanese cars have a good speed and have a good handling, but American cars have a really good speed but a stinking handling. So I was just looking at the engine torque, and my question is what makes a car so hard to turn, and what can I change to fix it?
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If you mean american musclecars... yes, I suppose their handling is poor...

Handling is usually factored by:

Weight
Size of tire
Camber / Springrate / Damper.

Naturally a heavier car will handle worse without large tires, and most ricers are lighter than 3000 lbs (save the R33-R34 behemoths)

Anyways, Torque.

It is the actual twisting force from the crankshaft, and the only true power measurement from an engine. As RPM comes into play, Horsepower is then coined. To get HP, you simply take the torque figure, multiply that by the engine RPM, and divide by 5250. This is why amazingly strong diesel engines do not post exciting HP numbers, and it is also why you see F1 cars revving to 14,000+ rpm. The higher the torque peak, the higher the HP. Note that on any dynamometer graph, the HP and LB.ft figure will always equal eachother at 5250 RPM.
 
engine torque is the raw power of the engine. Its basically how much weight an engine can carry at low RPM, as opposed to horse power, which is high RPM. More torque=more acceleration
 
I always think of torque when I think of trucks. Trucks have loads of torque because they are used to haul boats, trailers, other cars, houses, or whatever! I think horsepower when I think of sports cars and speed. I think both factor into acceleration. I think torque is more like raw engine power, and horsepower is what comes out at the rear wheels, or the flywheel, which is where they normally measure hp now.
 
Uhm, read up a tad :)

Torque is the only actual "power" measurement, HP just tells you the RPM of the torque peak.

Torque is usually associated with larger-displacement engines with good combustion chamber swirl and high velocity runners across 1.5-5000 RPM. Compression helps, as does good fuel metering.

Here is an example of torque:

Dodge Viper 0-60 (using 1st and 2nd gear) 3.9 seconds
Ferrari 360 0-60 ( ' ' ' ) 3.9 seconds

Viper using 2nd Only: 4.9 seconds
Modena using 2nd only: 6.8 seconds

Viper using 3rd: 8.5 seconds
Modena: too weak to accelerate.

The reason the above (just an example) works out is that the ferrari has absolutely no torque (275 lb.ft, at 6500 RPM) while the Viper churns out nearly TWICE as much from 2300-3400 RPM. It can turn the higher gears much easier than the rev happy italian.

Torque is useful for racing when say, accelerating out of a turn, or on the long straights when the motors grunt allows you to accelerate from 150-180 quicker than the rev happy engine.
 
American cars have a really good speed but a stinking handling.
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Thats not true with the Corvette Z06;) (the 2002 model has been tested to be capable of beating a Porche 911 Turbo on the track)

my question is what makes a car so hard to turn, and what can I change to fix it?
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What Id say makes the car so hard to turn is the wheight balance; American cars generally use very high displacement naturally aspirated engines with 8 or more cylinders to make their great torque and power (as opposed to most Japanese cars which use turbocharged engines with often 1/2 the amount of cylinders and displacement), and therefor the front end tends to be rather wheighty and the car becomes difficult to steer when slowing down rapidly form high speeds due to the tremendous wheight beeing thrown on to the front wheels, and the large amount of the front tire's overall traction beeing used to slow the vehicle down. My answer to this is to adjust the front brakes to be weaker. This increase the amount of overall grip available to the front wheels for conering because less of it is beeing used to slow the car down, which in turn will help to reduce the understeer during conering. This also means somewhat ealier braking, but it wasnt much of a problem for me. If its a race car, increasing the front downforce (or if its already maxed out, decreasing the rear downforce) will help reduce the car's understeering in higher speeds.

Btw, just because I made a really long post and used alot of what the GT1/2 manuals said doesnt mean it will work for you;)
 
Along with lightening the front brakes, you could also try incresing the toe angle of the rear wheels to help your cornering abilities as well.
 

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