What if Torque @ RPMs in engine specs was replaced with something else?

  • Thread starter dudejo
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dudejo
What does any of that have to do with what I've posted? I know how HP is calculated and how gearing works.

The entire point of this topic is to talk about potentially replacing the secondary specification of Torque @ X RPM with 50 HP @ X RPM. Doing this would show how above-average torque influences HP output when not at full throttle. An engine that makes 50 HP at below-average RPMs obviously has more torque.

Also, it would solve the problem of peak torque @ RPM not showing the 25%-75% differences in torque below the peak, depending on engine. It would also provide a clear baseline, something peak torque @ RPM doesn't do.
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I think this would all just make things even more difficult to understand for most people. Why not just show the torque curve? It's instantly decipherable and you can make visual comparisons, instead of detached analytic ones, over the entire engine's powerband.

This is tangentially related, but I think acceleration benchmarks have become nearly useless for sports cars. Just about everything hits 60mph in somewhere less than 3.5 seconds these days. I think sustained and instantaneous longitudinal g-forces would be an easier way to compare acceleration between cars. I've already seen this done on a limited scope. I think I remember that the Aventador can accelerate at 1.0g for a sustained period...which is insane.
 
Eunos_Cosmo
I think this would all just make things even more difficult to understand for most people. Why not just show the torque curve? It's instantly decipherable and you can make visual comparisons, instead of detached analytic ones, over the entire engine's powerband.
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This makes far more sense than adding a relatively esoteric number that most people won't understand. A very simple sparkline type graph in the brochure would be infinitely more informative for comparisons than picking random data points for comparison.
 
Because it tells you a very, very small part (and irrelevant one I would argue) of an engine's characteristics. Try using that method for an electric motor, it won't tell you anything about it's powerband or it's potential use.

You want a way to compare engines? Power output. Go to basically any industrial engine supplier, honestly, any of them:

Cat Marine Engines

John Deere Engines

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries

Volvo Industrial

They all use peak power output. You buy an engine for it's power, not for anything else.

Now I admit torque figure are probably more important in cars because they determine how it feels to drive, but a visual torque curve tells you so much more than an arbitrary 50hp @ Xrpm that means almost nothing.

What if an engine makes a peak of 50hp @ 1,000rpm (very large, low RPM industrial engine) but then immediately trails off. Another engine (lets call it a low displacement multi-cam V8) could also make 50hp @ 1,000rpm but then go on to make 500hp at 8,000rpm. Your figure is not capable of describing this difference.
 
Those industrial or marine engines either run a constant RPM or are geared so short that any difference in torque curves will be impossible to recognize. Or both.

Peak torque or my 50 hp @ X RPM wouldn't matter in such cases.
 

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