By Barry Cox A n old family friend once told me that once told me that horse- power is how fast you hit the wall and torque was how far you could pull it, to be honest I never did really understand what he meant, but it did seem like cool expression at the time. Torque or Horsepower has always been a topic of debate, but do you really know what the difference between the two is, and is one actually better or more important than the other.
Horsepower is the rating that describes how powerful an engine is.
Torque can be described as how flexible or how much force can be expressed in a given gear.
Torque is a rotational force. Related to an engine, it’s produced by the rotating crankshaft. In North America torque is measured in pounds- feet or lb-ft. Torque is the result of a force acting over a distance and is measured in foot-pounds. Horsepower, on the other hand is defined as work done over time. The exact definition of one horsepower is 33,000 lb.ft./minute. Put another way, if you were to lift 33,000 pounds one foot over a period of one minute, you would have been working at the rate of one horsepower. In this case, you’d have expended one horsepower-minute of energy. Now, to relate torque to horsepower, the math shows that horsepow- er and torque are equal to one another at 5,252 rpm. Above that, horsepower is greater than torque. A truckwith lots of torque canpull aheavy loadbut post a slow0 to60mph time however a muscle car with lots of horsepower sports can run though a 0 to 60 mph in under 5 seconds, but it you addweight will struggle to get off the line. Some say that torque is what gets you moving and horsepower is what keeps you moving those in the race industry will tell you that horse- power is the key to winning races. But generally, the higher the HP, the more powerful the car is: more power typically = faster overall acceleration, higher maximum speeds, higher weight limits/towing capacities, etc. Higher torque numbers result in: better in-gear acceleration (useful for passing or getting the car under way), lower engine speed at a given load (towing a trailer up-hill in an Accord and a F-150 may be possible for both, but the gearing and torque of the Accord will make it sound like the engine a sewing machine all the way to the top). I should mention that one of the downsides of high torque is when there is limited traction. In snow, gravel, or wet pavements, high torque can make it easier to spin out. This could impact your ability to get moving from a stop, to making the vehicle more prone to losing control when in motion. Which is more important to you should depend on your needs.
So I guess it just comes down to your needs in a vehicle, and what your demands will be for the vehicle.
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JUNE 2016 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS
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