Here is the deal i was researching the enemy and not to my surprise the civic Si has absolutly no torque whats so ever. i mean the heavily na modded ones can barley reach our torque levels stock.............So how does torque differ from HP? Is torque like strength and hp is like speed? If so it seems to be that if our cars have more torque then the only real advantage they have over us is weight............how come no one has done any real development of weight reduction for the eclipse body????????? What makes our cars so damn heavy??? If we could come up with a weight reduction program in simple stages, yet still be be streetable........i think we could be on to something.............anywayz answer the orginal question

Beacause we don't have that much to remove.. Well I mean if you want it to still look good.. You can remove the back seat, Spare Tire. Get a CF hood. remove the passenger seat. remove the airbags,.. So now your car is light but now you can't roll with anyone and your fucked when your tire blows, you spin out of control into the retaining wall and you smash your head in to the windsheild because no airbag deployed. So there is a lot of options out there but it comes with sacrifice.


Now The Only Thing You Really Need to Know about Hp vs Torque is, It is better to make torque at high rpm than at low rpm, because you can take advantage of *gearing*

naw here is an article i found that may help out.

There's been a certain amount of discussion, in this and other files, about the concepts of horsepower and torque, how they relate to each other, and how they apply in terms of automobile performance. I have observed that, although nearly everyone participating has a passion for automobiles, there is a huge variance in knowledge. It's clear that a bunch of folks have strong opinions (about this topic, and other things), but that has generally led to more heat than light, if you get my drift :-). I've posted a subset of this note in another string, but felt it deserved to be dealt with as a separate topic. This is meant to be a primer on the subject, which may lead to serious discussion that fleshes out this and other subtopics that will inevitably need to be addressed.
OK. Here's the deal, in moderately plain english.


Force, Work and Time
If you have a one pound weight bolted to the floor, and try to lift it with one pound of force (or 10, or 50 pounds), you will have applied force and exerted energy, but no work will have been done. If you unbolt the weight, and apply a force sufficient to lift the weight one foot, then one foot pound of work will have been done. If that event takes a minute to accomplish, then you will be doing work at the rate of one foot pound per minute. If it takes one second to accomplish the task, then work will be done at the rate of 60 foot pounds per minute, and so on.
In order to apply these measurements to automobiles and their performance (whether you're speaking of torque, horsepower, newton meters, watts, or any other terms), you need to address the three variables of force, work and time.

Awhile back, a gentleman by the name of Watt (the same gent who did all that neat stuff with steam engines) made some observations, and concluded that the average horse of the time could lift a 550 pound weight one foot in one second, thereby performing work at the rate of 550 foot pounds per second, or 33,000 foot pounds per minute, for an eight hour shift, more or less. He then published those observations, and stated that 33,000 foot pounds per minute of work was equivalent to the power of one horse, or, one horsepower.

Everybody else said OK. :-)

For purposes of this discussion, we need to measure units of force from rotating objects such as crankshafts, so we'll use terms which define a *twisting* force, such as foot pounds of torque. A foot pound of torque is the twisting force necessary to support a one pound weight on a weightless horizontal bar, one foot from the fulcrum.

Now, it's important to understand that nobody on the planet ever actually measures horsepower from a running engine. What we actually measure (on a dynomometer) is torque, expressed in foot pounds (in the U.S.), and then we *calculate* actual horsepower by converting the twisting force of torque into the work units of horsepower.

Visualize that one pound weight we mentioned, one foot from the fulcrum on its weightless bar. If we rotate that weight for one full revolution against a one pound resistance, we have moved it a total of 6.2832 feet (Pi * a two foot circle), and, incidently, we have done 6.2832 foot pounds of work.

OK. Remember Watt? He said that 33,000 foot pounds of work per minute was equivalent to one horsepower. If we divide the 6.2832 foot pounds of work we've done per revolution of that weight into 33,000 foot pounds, we come up with the fact that one foot pound of torque at 5252 rpm is equal to 33,000 foot pounds per minute of work, and is the equivalent of one horsepower. If we only move that weight at the rate of 2626 rpm, it's the equivalent of 1/2 horsepower (16,500 foot pounds per minute), and so on. Therefore, the following formula applies for calculating horsepower from a torque measurement:


Torque * RPM

Horsepower = ------------

5252


This is not a debatable item. It's the way it's done. Period.
The Case For Torque
Now, what does all this mean in carland?
First of all, from a driver's perspective, torque, to use the vernacular, RULES :-). Any given car, in any given gear, will accelerate at a rate that *exactly* matches its torque curve (allowing for increased air and rolling resistance as speeds climb). Another way of saying this is that a car will accelerate hardest at its torque peak in any given gear, and will not accelerate as hard below that peak, or above it. Torque is the only thing that a driver feels, and horsepower is just sort of an esoteric measurement in that context. 300 foot pounds of torque will accelerate you just as hard at 2000 rpm as it would if you were making that torque at 4000 rpm in the same gear, yet, per the formula, the horsepower would be *double* at 4000 rpm. Therefore, horsepower isn't particularly meaningful from a driver's perspective, and the two numbers only get friendly at 5252 rpm, where horsepower and torque always come out the same.

In contrast to a torque curve (and the matching pushback into your seat), horsepower rises rapidly with rpm, especially when torque values are also climbing. Horsepower will continue to climb, however, until well past the torque peak, and will continue to rise as engine speed climbs, until the torque curve really begins to plummet, faster than engine rpm is rising. However, as I said, horsepower has nothing to do with what a driver *feels*.

You don't believe all this?

Fine. Take your non turbo car (turbo lag muddles the results) to its torque peak in first gear, and punch it. Notice the belt in the back? Now take it to the power peak, and punch it. Notice that the belt in the back is a bit weaker? Fine. Can we go on, now? :-)


The Case For Horsepower
OK. If torque is so all-fired important, why do we care about horsepower?
Because (to quote a friend), "It is better to make torque at high rpm than at low rpm, because you can take advantage of *gearing*.

For an extreme example of this, I'll leave carland for a moment, and describe a waterwheel I got to watch awhile ago. This was a pretty massive wheel (built a couple of hundred years ago), rotating lazily on a shaft which was connected to the works inside a flour mill. Working some things out from what the people in the mill said, I was able to determine that the wheel typically generated about 2600(!) foot pounds of torque. I had clocked its speed, and determined that it was rotating at about 12 rpm. If we hooked that wheel to, say, the drivewheels of a car, that car would go from zero to twelve rpm in a flash, and the waterwheel would hardly notice :-).

On the other hand, twelve rpm of the drivewheels is around one mph for the average car, and, in order to go faster, we'd need to gear it up. To get to 60 mph would require gearing the wheel up enough so that it would be effectively making a little over 43 foot pounds of torque at the output, which is not only a relatively small amount, it's less than what the average car would need in order to actually get to 60. Applying the conversion formula gives us the facts on this. Twelve times twenty six hundred, over five thousand two hundred fifty two gives us:

6 HP.

Oops. Now we see the rest of the story. While it's clearly true that the water wheel can exert a *bunch* of force, its *power* (ability to do work over time) is severely limited.


At The Dragstrip
OK. Back to carland, and some examples of how horsepower makes a major difference in how fast a car can accelerate, in spite of what torque on your backside tells you :-).
A very good example would be to compare the current LT1 Corvette with the last of the L98 Vettes, built in 1991. Figures as follows:


Engine Peak HP @ RPM Peak Torque @ RPM

------ ------------- -----------------

L98 250 @ 4000 340 @ 3200

LT1 300 @ 5000 340 @ 3600


The cars are geared identically, and car weights are within a few pounds, so it's a good comparison.
First, each car will push you back in the seat (the fun factor) with the same authority - at least at or near peak torque in each gear. One will tend to *feel* about as fast as the other to the driver, but the LT1 will actually be significantly faster than the L98, even though it won't pull any harder. If we mess about with the formula, we can begin to discover exactly *why* the LT1 is faster. Here's another slice at that formula:


Horsepower * 5252

Torque = -----------------

RPM


If we plug some numbers in, we can see that the L98 is making 328 foot pounds of torque at its power peak (250 hp @ 4000), and we can infer that it cannot be making any more than 263 pound feet of torque at 5000 rpm, or it would be making more than 250 hp at that engine speed, and would be so rated. In actuality, the L98 is probably making no more than around 210 pound feet or so at 5000 rpm, and anybody who owns one would shift it at around 46-4700 rpm, because more torque is available at the drive wheels in the next gear at that point.
On the other hand, the LT1 is fairly happy making 315 pound feet at 5000 rpm, and is happy right up to its mid 5s redline.

So, in a drag race, the cars would launch more or less together. The L98 might have a slight advantage due to its peak torque occuring a little earlier in the rev range, but that is debatable, since the LT1 has a wider, flatter curve (again pretty much by definition, looking at the figures). From somewhere in the mid range and up, however, the LT1 would begin to pull away. Where the L98 has to shift to second (and throw away torque multiplication for speed), the LT1 still has around another 1000 rpm to go in first, and thus begins to widen its lead, more and more as the speeds climb. As long as the revs are high, the LT1, by definition, has an advantage.

Another example would be the LT1 against the ZR-1. Same deal, only in reverse. The ZR-1 actually pulls a little harder than the LT1, although its torque advantage is softened somewhat by its extra weight. The real advantage, however, is that the ZR-1 has another 1500 rpm in hand at the point where the LT1 has to shift.

There are numerous examples of this phenomenon. The Integra GS-R, for instance, is faster than the garden variety Integra, not because it pulls particularly harder (it doesn't), but because it pulls *longer*. It doesn't feel particularly faster, but it is.

A final example of this requires your imagination. Figure that we can tweak an LT1 engine so that it still makes peak torque of 340 foot pounds at 3600 rpm, but, instead of the curve dropping off to 315 pound feet at 5000, we extend the torque curve so much that it doesn't fall off to 315 pound feet until 15000 rpm. OK, so we'd need to have virtually all the moving parts made out of unobtanium :-), and some sort of turbocharging on demand that would make enough high-rpm boost to keep the curve from falling, but hey, bear with me.

If you raced a stock LT1 with this car, they would launch together, but, somewhere around the 60 foot point, the stocker would begin to fade, and would have to grab second gear shortly thereafter. Not long after that, you'd see in your mirror that the stocker has grabbed third, and not too long after that, it would get fourth, but you'd wouldn't be able to see that due to the distance between you as you crossed the line, *still in first gear*, and pulling like crazy.

I've got a computer simulation that models an LT1 Vette in a quarter mile pass, and it predicts a 13.38 second ET, at 104.5 mph. That's pretty close (actually a tiny bit conservative) to what a stock LT1 can do at 100% air density at a high traction drag strip, being powershifted. However, our modified car, while belting the driver in the back no harder than the stocker (at peak torque) does an 11.96, at 135.1 mph, all in first gear, of course. It doesn't pull any harder, but it sure as hell pulls longer :-). It's also making *900* hp, at 15,000 rpm.

Of course, folks who are knowledgeable about drag racing are now openly snickering, because they've read the preceeding paragraph, and it occurs to them that any self respecting car that can get to 135 mph in a quarter mile will just naturally be doing this in less than ten seconds. Of course that's true, but I remind these same folks that any self-respecting engine that propels a Vette into the nines is also making a whole bunch more than 340 foot pounds of torque.

That does bring up another point, though. Essentially, a more "real" Corvette running 135 mph in a quarter mile (maybe a mega big block) might be making 700-800 foot pounds of torque, and thus it would pull a whole bunch harder than my paper tiger would. It would need slicks and other modifications in order to turn that torque into forward motion, but it would also get from here to way over there a bunch quicker.

On the other hand, as long as we're making quarter mile passes with fantasy engines, if we put a 10.35:1 final-drive gear (3.45 is stock) in our fantasy LT1, with slicks and other chassis mods, we'd be in the nines just as easily as the big block would, and thus save face :-). The mechanical advantage of such a nonsensical rear gear would allow our combination to pull just as hard as the big block, plus we'd get to do all that gear banging and such that real racers do, and finish in fourth gear, as God intends. :-)

The only modification to the preceeding paragraph would be the polar moments of inertia (flywheel effect) argument brought about by such a stiff rear gear, and that argument is outside of the scope of this already massive document. Another time, maybe, if you can stand it :-).


At The Bonneville Salt Flats
Looking at top speed, horsepower wins again, in the sense that making more torque at high rpm means you can use a stiffer gear for any given car speed, and thus have more effective torque *at the drive wheels*.
Finally, operating at the power peak means you are doing the absolute best you can at any given car speed, measuring torque at the drive wheels. I know I said that acceleration follows the torque curve in any given gear, but if you factor in gearing vs car speed, the power peak is *it*. An example, yet again, of the LT1 Vette will illustrate this. If you take it up to its torque peak (3600 rpm) in a gear, it will generate some level of torque (340 foot pounds times whatever overall gearing) at the drive wheels, which is the best it will do in that gear (meaning, that's where it is pulling hardest in that gear).

However, if you re-gear the car so it is operating at the power peak (5000 rpm) *at the same car speed*, it will deliver more torque to the drive wheels, because you'll need to gear it up by nearly 39% (5000/3600), while engine torque has only dropped by a little over 7% (315/340). You'll net a 29% gain in drive wheel torque at the power peak vs the torque peak, at a given car speed.

Any other rpm (other than the power peak) at a given car speed will net you a lower torque value at the drive wheels. This would be true of any car on the planet, so, theoretical "best" top speed will always occur when a given vehicle is operating at its power peak.

"Modernizing" The 18th Century
OK. For the final-final point (Really. I Promise.), what if we ditched that water wheel, and bolted an LT1 in its place? Now, no LT1 is going to be making over 2600 foot pounds of torque (except possibly for a single, glorious instant, running on nitromethane), but, assuming we needed 12 rpm for an input to the mill, we could run the LT1 at 5000 rpm (where it's making 315 foot pounds of torque), and gear it down to a 12 rpm output. Result? We'd have over *131,000* foot pounds of torque to play with. We could probably twist the whole flour mill around the input shaft, if we needed to :-).


99_GS
ICQ# 40424747

that was deep, 99!!!

Chris Dishmon

"Fillet Mignon?!?!?! How about a big slab of tube steak for the pretty lady."

chrisdishmon@hotmail.com
http://klipzracer.homestead.com/index.html

...remove the back bench, the seat, and strip out the rear. I don't have a carbon fiber hood. Although I did order one that did fit!! All that together should be about 100 pounds. My little base Talon would be 2629lbs. I would say I'm about stock weight with the rear stripped out and my subs back there but the carbon fiber hood would definitely help my weight with ACCELERATION and HANDLING.

Skrilla
'97 Base Talon NA
"Technology: The Only Replacement for Displacement"
"Peace and Turbo Grease"

so its all about peak power right.....so i was looking at a nt eclipse dyno and it peaks @ 6000 rpm then begins to decline and finally redlines @ 7000 so if torque is the same in every gear. Shouldnt we be shifting @ around 5500 in first and 6200 in all other gears? cause it seems to me that after i hit 6 grand i dont GO any faster it just engine noise...................any one aggree on the after 6 you dont feel the car pulling or is it just me

u get my vote for longest reply 99!

geezus im blinded now







Kory
ticklemekory@cisco.com
Happy Honda Hunting!

Magnus, I belive that to be right. I remember someone posting about Wyatts Dyno and mentioning that over like 6000(500) was a waste.

As for the post.. well it was a cut and paste.. so I didn't type it all out.. funny thing is.. when I did another search.. I found the exact same article in a big Honda site.

99_GS
ICQ# 40424747

low torque high HP may be good for drag racing, but for passing its torque that you want, unless you're always on the top of the power curve.

javi d
vroom n' boom

but I know that my car pulls hard all the way to the 7200rpm Fuel Cut and just wants to keep going. I need the AFX ECU bad. I was racing a prelude last night and kept up with him pulling all the way to 7200 as he went his higher redline, damn I wish I could rev that high.




KYB AGX Struts
Neuspeed Sport Springs
5 Strut Bars (2 F/U, F/L, R/U, R/L)
Sprint Front Camber Kit
$15 Rear Camber Kit
Ported Intake Manifold
Ported Throttle Body
Custom 2 1/4 inch exhaust
Empty Catalytic Convertor
225/50/16inch Wheels and Tires

Max acceleration occurs at peak torque and top speed occurs peak HP. So whe you shift you want to end up where the peak torque is. BUT chances are our cars are modified. My car pulls hard all the way to redline(3500-7500rpm camshafts) so that's when I shift.

Skrilla
'97 Base Talon NA
"Technology: The Only Replacement for Displacement"
"Peace and Turbo Grease"

Ok.. i got another cut and paste.. this one is an editorial from allpar.com and will help the *shift at peak torque* crowd...

The real thing is where your measuring the torque.. and how your gearing affects torque.. If you shift our motors at peak torque, you'll be slow ;-)

Read and this will explain:

ttyl

WheatKing


"First, a clarification: torque is no more real than power. The DOHC puts out 133 ft-lb of ground-pounding torque, but I've seen some older Neons that are leaking torque and you have to avoid driving behind them because the torque, once leaked, is slippery. Don't bother picking it up and adding it to your engine as it degrades quickly and will take you out of Stock class. Consider torque and power as concepts used to describe how things interact to produce movement and how "energy" (another concept) is transferred.

Both torque and power can be observed "directly". Think of slowing a free-spinning tire with your hand. Feel the tug on your palm and the tension in your arm? That's a measure of torque, the torque the tire experiences as a result of your palm slowing it down. Feel the heat build up from friction? That's a measure of power.

Incidentally, water brake dynamometers get a direct measurement of power by measuring the increase in the temperature of water flowing past a propeller spun by the engine under test. You can solve for torque if you know engine RPM.

Maximum Acceleration vs TorqueI'd like to think that torque is an intuitively easier concept to understand. If that were true, though, then more people would understand the relationship between torque, horsepower, and vehicle acceleration. In reality, none of it is intuitive. If it were, Newton wouldn't be considered the Really Great Guy that he is.

The classic mistake is to conclude that the fastest way down, let's say, a 1/4 mile drag strip is to keep the engine RPM at the torque peak (or as close as possible). The technique is usually stated as "shift just after the torque peak", or "shift N RPM above the torque peak so you are N RPM below the torque peak in the next gear when you finish the shift".

Unfortunately, *engine* torque does not tell you the full story. What matters is the torque *delivered to the tires*, including the effects of the transmission. We all know a car does not accelerate as hard in second gear at peak torque RPM as it does in first gear. The transmission amplifies or multiplies the torque coming from the engine by a factor equal to the gear ratio. So to determine how much the car is accelerating at a particular instant, you have to know both the torque output of the engine as well as the gear ratio.

To figure out your shift points knowing only torque, generate tables of transmission output torque vs. RPM for each gear. To get transmission output torque, multiply the engine torque by the gear ratio. You are simply comparing gear to gear, so the final drive ratio can be ignored. You may also need to know the relationship between RPM in one gear and RPM in another gear (which is RPM * (gear2ratio/gear1ratio) at any particular vehicle speed.) Then it's easy to see what shift points to choose to maximize your transmission output torque at all times.

Here's an example for the 1999 Neon DOHC engine with a five-speed manual transmission. Before you flame, understand that I do not have an accurate torque curve for this motor. I'm estimating visually from the curve printed in the '99 brochure, which is seriously flawed (it makes a lot more sense if the torque curve is shifted to the right 1000 RPM). I get:




Engine Transmission output torque (ft-lb):



Torque 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th




RPM (ft-lb) 3.54 2.13 1.36 1.03 0.72 <- gear ratio


---- ------- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----


1000 50 177 107 68 52 36



1500 65 230 138 88 67 47



2000 80 283 170 109 82 58



2500 92 326 196 125 95 66



3000 104 368 222 141 107 75



3500 114 404 243 155 117 82



4000 120 425 256 163 124 86



4500 125 443 266 170 129 90



5000 130 460 277 177 134 94



5500* 133 471 283 181 137 96



6000 130 460 277 177 134 94



6500* 122 432 260 166 126 88



7000 110 389 234 150 113 79


(note: peak torque is at 5500 RPM, peak horsepower is at 6500 RPM)

Without graphing, there's something immediately apparent: in any gear, at 7000 RPM, the transmission torque output is always higher than at any RPM in the next gear up. What this means is, for this car:

Shift at the redline, not at the torque peak!
Walk through an example. You're hammering down the track in 1st gear. Engine RPM is 6000, just past the engine's torque peak. Do you shift? Well, if you do, the engine will be pulled down to 3600 RPM, and 2nd gear will send 246 ft-lb of torque to the wheels (actually, to the differential first, which amplifies the torque by a constant factor and sends it to the wheels). Don't you think it would be better to hold it in first gear? Torque is dropping off, but it's still 389 ft-lb at 7000 RPM, right before the 7200 RPM redline. So, for this powertrain, first gear is *always* the best deal for acceleration, at any speed, except that you can't accelerate past the redline.

The 1-2 shift at 7200 RPM pulls the engine down to 4400 RPM, where 2nd will deliver 265 ft-lb of torque. Not only did you win by maintaining the high torque of 1st all the way to 7200 RPM, you are now better off in second gear.

Same thing goes for the 2-3 shift. 2nd gear output torque at the redline is still greater than 3rd gear output torque at any engine speed, so you wind her out as far as she'll go before you shift to 3rd. Same for the 3-4, same for the 4-5.

But, you ask, isn't your acceleration greatest at the torque peak? Yes, it is! But only within that gear. The next gear down will give you even greater acceleration at the same speed, unless the vehicle speed is too high for that gear.

To use engine torque to understand how your car performs, you MUST include the effects of the transmission.

Maximum Acceleration Vs. PowerOK, so what about power? As has been noted by a previous contributor, Power (hp) = Torque (ft-lb) * RPM / 5252. Note that power is also force * velocity, specifically:

Power (hp) = Force (lb) * Velocity (MPH) / 374

That's net horsepower, which is engine power minus losses like transmission and tire friction. The force is the sum of the longitudinal forces at the contact patches of the two driven tires.

Hmmm... P = F * V ...rearrange to get F = P / V ...

that means that you get the maximum force pushing the car if you maximize your *Power* at any given velocity. This gives us another useful rule:

Shift to maximize engine POWER, not engine torque!
This is *exactly* the same as saying "shift to maximize transmission output torque". But it's a little easier to apply. Here's how.

Using the torque information above, I get the following power curve:



RPM HP



1000 10



1500 19



2000 30



2500 44



3000 59



3500 76



4000 91



4500 107



5000 124



5500 139 (peak torque)



6000 149



6500 151 (peak power)



7000 147


The tires don't see quite these numbers due to losses, but I'm going to assume that the losses are comparable from gear to gear and that the overall shape of the power curve remains the same.

Applying the maximum power rule, we'd like to race down the 1/4 mile with the engine always as close to 6500 RPM as possible. If we had a continuously variable transmission, the lowest E.T. would be achieved by keeping the engine dead on 6500 RPM. 5500 is not the best; at any vehicle speed, the engine would put out more torque but the transmission will have a less advantageous gear ratio, so you get a net loss of force to the tires. Apply P = F * V or P = T * RPM to prove this.

Since the Neon doesn't have a CVT, we have to shift. The shift points are pretty easy to determine. In fact, you don't really need to know anything about the gear ratios of the different gears, which is why power is sometimes easier to understand than torque.

I'm going to assume that the DOHC puts out at least 145 horsepower at the redline (7200 RPM). Shifting at the redline in each gear should drag the engine down as follows:



shift RPM drop Horsepower change


- ----- ---------- ------------------


1->2 7200->4700 145->114


2->3 7200->4600 145->110


3->4 7200->5500 145->139


4->5 7200->5000 145->124


(I derived this, but all you really need to do is drive the car, shift, and find out where the motor lands)

Note - and this is important - the transmission does not amplify power.

Power in = power out, minus losses
(which are low for a manual transmission).

This is predicted by the law of conservation of energy.

Is 7200 the correct shift point? It would *not* be the correct shift point if the engine was making more power in the new gear than the old gear. That would mean that you should have shifted earlier. But in this case, the power output at redline is always greater than the power output after the shift. So it's the best performance you can get.

A more rigorous way of doing this is to graph horsepower vs. velocity in each of the gears. If power in one gear drops below the horsepower of the next gear at a particular MPH, then that MPH is where you should shift, otherwise shift at the redline.

I leave as an exercise for the reader the following: predicting shift points based on engine torque, RPM, and gear ratio gives the same results as predicting shift points based on power and vehicle velocity.

ExceptionsThere are no exceptions; a car running at its (net) power peak can accelerate no harder at that same vehicle speed. There is no better gear to choose, even if another gear would place the engine closer to its torque peak. You'll find that a car running at peak power at a given vehicle speed is delivering the maximum possible torque to the tires (although the engine may not be spinning at its torque peak). This derives immediately from first principles in physics.

However, note the following: - Transmission losses are not shown on engine power curves. The net power curve (power delivered to the ground) may have a different shape or even a different peak RPM as a result. This would result in different shift point. Best results are obtained from a power curve measured by a chassis dynamometer. - The discussion above assumes negligible tire slip. If you exceed the maximum traction available from the tires, then additional power doesn't help. That's why it's sometimes no loss at all to shift early when the tires break loose, and in fact it can be a benefit.

To the PointTorque and power are (almost) flip sides of the same coin. Increasing the torque of an engine at a particular RPM is the same as increasing the power output at the same RPM.

Power is just as useful and relevant in determining vehicle performance as is torque. In some situations it's more useful, because you may not have to play with gear ratios and a calculator to understand what's going on.

A car accelerates hardest with gearing selected to stay as close as possible to the engine *power* peak, subject to the traction capability of the tires.

Not all cars should be shifted at the redline for maximum performance. But it's true for many cars. You can determine optimal shift points by graphing horsepower vs. velocity or transmission torque vs. RPM. Engine torque alone will not determine shift points.

Well, there you have it. I'd be happy to answer questions (or defend flames, I guess).

Note: Joseph Rome wrote to tell us about a program called Cartest which helps determine optimal shift points.



----------------------------------------
91 Talon AWD - Busted..
95 Sebring LX 2.0L 5sp Backyard Turbo'd
95 Avenger 2.0L 5sp - 100% stock!
96 Jeep Cherokee - Tow vehicle