HP doesnt win races

HP alone doesn't win races and i know that 95GSXracer knows this. You must have both to win and be fast. Because if you are going to have no torque you might as well buy a Honduh. :thumbsup:

You must have more than horsepower and torque to win races. You have to have a good suspension, traction, be a good driver, gears. There is a lot more to the equation than horsepower and torque.

whats this posting for ???

whats this posting for ???

Kevin(95GSXracer) made this comment earlier on another thread but he didn't want to hi-jack it. he said make a new thread. i wanted to hear what he had to say.

originally posted by 1qwik4:
"You must have more than horsepower and torque to win races. You have to have a good suspension, traction, be a good driver, gears. There is a lot more to the equation than horsepower and torque."

yes that is true but i started this thread because of the above reason. ;)

I think half of the battle is the driver. If two cars are evenly matched, the drivers will make the difference. A bad driver just isn't going to win races no matter what they do.

agreed
"granny shifting , not double clutching when they should be "
lol
sorry had to get that out

but fer sure, the driver can make all the difference, even if the cars aren't matched, if the weaker car has the better driver and the faster car has the not-so-good driver it ll even it out

Even if we limit the discussion to JUST horsepower and torque, HP is what determines your et/mph, not torque. This is a widely misunderstood concept, and I see it on all forums. Since HP also takes rpm into account, lets say that the higher in the rpm band you can make your torque, the better your times will be. And this can all be worked out with some simple math.

To put it simply Hp comes in the top half of your RPM range. TQ comes it in the bottom half. No TQ no win, No HP no win. The truth is you need to have a balanced set up it can be more HP. TQ is what pulls you off the line and HP is what takes you thru the trap and the finish line. Bad driver with a fast car is WHAT? Still a bad driver. #1 no your car and what it is cable of, push some of the limits and see what you can do.

TQ doesnt even get you off the line. HP does EVERYTHING. Torque is a measurement of a static force. For example, you can put 100 ft lbs on the torque wrench on your lug nuts, but the lug nut doesnt move. Its a static force. You cant move anything with a static force. Once it does move, it becomes HP, a force applied over time. Movememnt is required. ;) Also, until there is movement no work is done. You can put that 100 ftlbs on that lug wrnech all day and sweat your ass off, but if its not moving, no work is being done. HP is work done when you get down to it. Tq and HP are mathematically equivelent, they are tied together. You cant seperate the two. The only reason torque comes in the lower half, and HP comes in the higher half, is because mathematically they MUST cross at 5252 rpm (if the motor revs that high). Its simply because thats the constant in the equation

HP=tqxrpm divided by 5252

For drag racing Tq doesnt even matter. HP is what gets you down the track. Again, HP is work done, or a force applied over time. This is what gives your car movement. You cant calculate your elapsed time or your trap speed (miles per HOUR) without including time. This is why all of the ET/trap/HP calculators use or give you HP, and have nothing to do with torque ;) If torque affected the outcome, surely you would need to include it right? ;) No calculator will take torque and give you ET/mph, or take ET/mph and give you torque. Its not possible. But, there are plenty of calculations that will do this for you. In fact, in my personal expereinece with my car and others, some of them are VERY accurate. Within 10 hp at over 400 hp. (www.dsm.org calc is very good, and the only one I use)

That being said, and going back to my previous post, lets propose a question here. We have two cars. They both make the same peak torque, but one car makes it in the 3k rpm range, and the other makes it in the 6k rpm range. The cars are the same weight. Which will trap higher? And why.

:)

welcome to math class, taught by Mr Jewer =]

I still have a lot to learn myself, but believe me I could go on for hours on this topic. But I would rather see everyone else think about the problem and take a stab at it, than just ramble on for pages about some technical BS babble. But dont worry, I will eventually :lol:

So. We have two cars. They both make the same peak torque, but one car makes it in the 3k rpm range, and the other makes it in the 6k rpm range. The cars are the same weight. Which will trap higher? And why.

I'll answer/explain eventually, but if anyone knows, or thinks they have figured it out, dont be afraid to take a stab at it. It can be said in one sentence, or in 10 pages of text ;)

That being said, and going back to my previous post, lets propose a question here. We have two cars. They both make the same peak torque, but one car makes it in the 3k rpm range, and the other makes it in the 6k rpm range. The cars are the same weight. Which will trap higher? And why.

:)

i would say that the car that makes max TQ in the 3000 RPM range. Because you should reach max HP quicker than if TQ was until the 6000 RPM range. Since you are getting into your horse power faster, you should be able to reach a higher trap speed.

P.S. Thanks for the lesson Kevin. :thumbsup: Its been a while since i reviewed my physics book from last year. everything you said was right( of course) and makes complete since if you know anything about how forces act on each and their basic definitions.

Yes I have to agree and say that if you max out your torque at 3k rpm you will have a higher trap speed than 6k rpm. With a max torque at 3k rpm your acceleration would be much greater than at 6k rpm....

Yes it definitely would have to be the car with 3k max torque.
This is going to be great for tomorrow, we are learning torque in physics class. :rofl:

GSX RACER you now your shit but one question if you take two of the same car that both red line a 6,000, but one car has 190 pt (pounds of tourc) and the other one only has 25 pt. which car will win the race???
you see tourc dose play a factor when it comes to the hole shot. becuse if you cant put the hp to the wheels then you are just &*$%. if you know what i mean. and most i say most races are won in the hole. sorry if every thing is spelled wrong.

Alright, enough BS, time to get into it. :smile: You guys that answered chose the wrong car. But you thought about it, and gave a reason, and thats all that maters :)

In my example above the car that makes the torque at 6k rpm will beat the car that makes tq at the 3k rpm. Here is why. As I said above it is HP, not torque, that moves you down the track in a given period of time. Torque is a static force, and HP is that torque appied over time and distance. You need time to be moving. MILES per HOUR, METERS per SECOND, etc. Distance and time.

Lets take a look at the formula for HP.

Torque x RPM
------------- = HP
5252

That 5252 is the constant used in the equation, and I could go on for a good bit about where it came from. But its not necessary. Ashah000, chances are when your physics class discusses HP, you may go over where that number comes from.

Using that example, lets firgure out the HP for the 2 cars that I used in my above example. We will use 300 ft-lbs for the example, but you can pick any number and run the math for yourself and see what happens. We will also assume that they both have the same torque curve.

Car #1 makes peak torque at 3k rpm. So 300 times 3000, divided by 5252. It makes 171 HP.

Car #2 makes peak torque at 6k rpm. So 300 times 6000, divided by 5252. It makes 342 HP.

See what happens? Double the rpm, double the HP. Since HP is what moves you down the track, the car that goes to 6k rpm will beat the car that only goes to 3k rpm. The higher the rpm you can make a given torque, the higher your HP will be. Imagine if we could have a flat torque curve of 300 ftlbs from 0 to 15000 rpm. We would have 856 HP, and could probably finish the quarter mile without ever shifting :lol:

Now why couldnt we just up the torque on the 3k car to equal the 342 HP of the 6k car? Well you could. But you would still have to gear it up in order to get to the same speeds as the 6k car. Which brings me to my next point. Gearing

The car will accelerate the hardest at the peak of the torque curve. That is what you will feel from in the car. You cant measure or feel HP, only torque. Both cars making the 300 ftlbs will "feel" the same to the passengers. (The car making 856 HP at 15000 rpm wont feel any faster than the other two examples) If the car accelerates hardest at its peak torque, in what gear will it accelerate the hardest? The one that has the most torque AT THE WHEELS. ;) First gear. So we will say that the car will accelerate hardest at the peak WHEEL torque. And we can all agree that gearing will determine wheel torque. That being said, lets look at out two examples again. Both cars come off the line. The 3k car is pulling hard at its peak torque while the 6k car is still coming up to its peak torque. But then what happens! The 3k car has to shift into second, while the 6k car is making the same peak torque, but with the wheel torque of first gear. The 3k car is in second with less wheel torque, so the 6k car starts to pull away. This repeats itself gear after gear. If you havent figured it out yet, the key to all this is torque mulitplication. Gear reduction. ;) The 3k rpm car may get to its torque peak earlier, but it also has to shift earlier, to a gear that will put it at a wheel torque dissadvantage to the 6k rpm car. This is the key guys.

So now not only is the 6k car making more HP, but its spending more time in the lower gears making more wheel torque, accelerating the car harder for a larger period of time. This is the key poeple. Torque is a good thing, but it is better to make that torque at higher rpm so you can take advantage of lower gearing for a greater length of time. And force applied (wheel torque) over time/distance equals your results on the track.

To finish our examples of the 2 cars, lets use the calc at www.dsm.org to see what each one would run in the quarter. The trap speeds are VERY accurate on this calc based on my own experience with many cars. The ET is only accurate with very good traction, so assume AWD if you want to go by the ETs. So if you enter your timeslip into that calc, the nember given for "speed method" is most accurate. I only pay attention to the trap speed results. I will use the numbers we came up with above as wheel HP (what this calc and all other gives you) to avoid getting into a debate about what our drivetrain loss is ;)

The 3k rpm car with 171 WHP will run 15.5 at 88 mph. And 88 mph is about what stock DSMs do with 170 wheel HP. Pretty accurate. Though an AWD will do better than a 15.5 ;)

The 6k rpm car with the same torque but 342 WHP will run 12.4 at 110 mph. Thats a 22 MPH improvement! So you can see how extreme this example was ;) And again, an AWD DSM driven perfectly will trap about 12.1-12.2 at that 110 mph. And this is what you would expect to run at this power level in a DSM.

Our fantasy 15000 rpm car (856 hp) would trap about 150 mph, all with 300 ft/lbs of torque. :icon16:

So to get back to the real world where tq peaks are fairly close to each other, all cars are geared appropriately, etc, making the same torque at higher rpm gives you the advantage. This is why the 9 second DSMs all shift at 10k rpm. Every part of the car is chosen for its ability to move the torque curve higher in the rpm range. Intake manifolds with short runners, big cams, etc. They start making power late in the rpm range, and they have no trouble getting the car off the line with no low end torque. Look at Curt Brown and John Shepperd, pulling 1.2-1.3 60 foot times if you dont believe me. Look at those nasty rotary motors that have to idle at 4k rpm and dont start to make power until 6k and up. They pull equally fast 60 foots. It may not be fun to drive on the street, but you can always get the car off the line. Launch rpm, flywheel weights, etc, can be adjusted. How is it that these tiny little 4 bangers with hardly any torque are running 7s and better? They rev to the moon, yeilding lots of HP for that amount of torque. The results speak for themselves.

I hope this helps to clear some of this up. If there are any more specific questions, by all means, ask away :)

GSX RACER you now your shit but one question if you take two of the same car that both red line a 6,000, but one car has 190 pt (pounds of tourc) and the other one only has 25 pt. which car will win the race???
you see tourc dose play a factor when it comes to the hole shot. becuse if you cant put the hp to the wheels then you are just &*$%. if you know what i mean. and most i say most races are won in the hole. sorry if every thing is spelled wrong.


It depends on how high you can rev each one ;) If the 190 ftlb car can only make that tq to 3k rpm (108 HP), and the 25 ftlb car can make that tq to 25,000 rpm (119 hp) the 25 ftlb car will win. Now, of course that rpm spread is very unrealistic, but so is the spread between 190 ft-lbs and 25. ;)

A more likely example is a car that makes 300 ftlbs at 6k rpm (lets say domestic car) and a car that makes 300 ftlbs at 8k rpm (well call that an import). The "domestic" makes 342 hp, and the "import" makes 456 HP. Thats a pretty substantial difference! If both cars weight the same, we'll say 3000 pounds, the "domestic" will run 113.5 mph, and the "import" will run 125 mph. You could compare ETs, but most likely the first car has RWD and the other has FWD in this example. If traction was the same though you could compare ETs as well. Now, we are assuming a few things, like both cars make peak torque at redline, etc, but its a pretty accurate example. One that makes more sense than the one above. This is the reason that imports with small motors can compete with car with much larger motors. That little bit of extra RPM gives us the upper hand.

Now, what happens when we modify a large displacement V8 to make power all the way up to 8k rpm? It will run fast as hell! Dont bother racing it. ;) This is also the secret to Formula cars. Barely over 1 liter motors, but they make 1000 hp. How? They rev to 18k rpm. 300 ft lbs at 18,000 rpm is over 1000 HP. ;) And because this allows them to use ridiculously low gear ratios (torque multiplication again) wheel torque is astronomical! Lets look just at the 2g turbo DSM ratio. First gear is 3.083 and the final drive ratio is 4.929. Do the math and 300 ftlbs at the motor becomes 4558 ftlbs at the wheels. THIS is what I mean when I say that torque multiplication of the lower gears is the key... Just the change up one gear to 2nd cuts it nearly in half to 2490 wheel ftlbs. 5th gear hacks it down to 986 ftlbs. Now imagine we could rev to 18k, and use an even lower gear ratio set for every gear... And you can see how the F1 cars do it with so little torque.

Like I said earlier the work hand in hand. A car with 300 hp and 100 ft/lbs vs a car with 250 hp and 220ft/lbs. Which one will we both know the the car with more torque and a tad bit less hp will. Quik out the hole and through the trap, slow out the hole and you lost the race. everyone knows if you can't come out the hole with even cars you have already lost. Like I said previously you need torque to come out the hole. I have been racing V8 since I have been driving. For instance what brings a 5.0 up in the air and down the track for those low 60 times. TQ. What is it that makes the tires smoke like your on fire TQ. What is it that twists driveshafts. HP alone can't do this but yes HP does pick it up and take you down the track. Hince forth the work TOGETHER. You can't win a race soley on TQ. You can't win a race soley on HP unless you a pushin 1300 HP. Talk to any professional dragster and they will tell you that it is like a 1 2 punch.

95GSXracer, I did the same calculation that you did and came up with the same numbers and initially thought that the 6K rpm car would trap higher based on hp. Then I thought about it some more and came up with different logic. My thinking was that both cars had the same shift point at, hypothetically speaking, 7K rpm for example. Even though that the torque peaked out at 3k rpm doesnt mean that the hp peaked too. It is where the power band is, so I thought. Now at peak torque at 3k rpm, means to me that acceleration is greater than a peak torque at 6k rpm, assuming both had the same shift point at 7k rpm or where ever the power band is. I guess I didn't realize that the shift point was only at peak torque. This to me almost sounds like a turbo diesel motor that only has a rpm range to 3k and is basically all torque, then in this case I would say that the car that has the max torque 6k rpm will trap higher b/c of the difference in shift points. Is my thinking totally off, I am here to learn so please explain.

Like I said earlier the work hand in hand. A car with 300 hp and 100 ft/lbs vs a car with 250 hp and 220ft/lbs. Which one will we both know the the car with more torque and a tad bit less hp will. Quik out the hole and through the trap, slow out the hole and you lost the race. everyone knows if you can't come out the hole with even cars you have already lost. Like I said previously you need torque to come out the hole. I have been racing V8 since I have been driving. For instance what brings a 5.0 up in the air and down the track for those low 60 times. TQ. What is it that makes the tires smoke like your on fire TQ. What is it that twists driveshafts. HP alone can't do this but yes HP does pick it up and take you down the track. Hince forth the work TOGETHER. You can't win a race soley on TQ. You can't win a race soley on HP unless you a pushin 1300 HP. Talk to any professional dragster and they will tell you that it is like a 1 2 punch.


Then I guess I wrote everything up there for nothing? :biggrin: TQ does not move the driveshaft. You can put 10,000 ft pounds on a driveshaft and yet not have it move. As soon as it does move, its now HP.

You will have heard this from v8 dragster guys because they all launch at low rpm. So its not they need tq, but they need low rpm power, and that requires low rpm torque (cant have hp without tq). To try to seperate them as two seperate forces is absurd. They are methematically linked. A particlar tq at a particular rpm is ALWAYS the same HP. They can not be seperated like that. HP just includes rpm in its number.

If you need low end V8 TQ so bad to get good 60 foots, how the hell am I getting 1.5s on all season tires? Especially with AWD, I should just bog right? No. Launch at high rpm. Like I already said, Shepperd pulls 1.2-1.3 scond 60' times and all of his power is made up top.

Be careful passing around simple generalizations like TQ gets you off the line and HP gets you down the track. Consider that HP is the only one that includes movement, and besides, you pass through the TQ peak AND hp peak in EVERY gear, from the launch to the traps ;)

Not trying to argue, if anything I appreciate the discussion :)

95GSXracer, I did the same calculation that you did and came up with the same numbers and initially thought that the 6K rpm car would trap higher based on hp. Then I thought about it some more and came up with different logic. My thinking was that both cars had the same shift point at, hypothetically speaking, 7K rpm for example. Even though that the torque peaked out at 3k rpm doesnt mean that the hp peaked too. It is where the power band is, so I thought. Now at peak torque at 3k rpm, means to me that acceleration is greater than a peak torque at 6k rpm, assuming both had the same shift point at 7k rpm or where ever the power band is. I guess I didn't realize that the shift point was only at peak torque. This to me almost sounds like a turbo diesel motor that only has a rpm range to 3k and is basically all torque, then in this case I would say that the car that has the max torque 6k rpm will trap higher b/c of the difference in shift points. Is my thinking totally off, I am here to learn so please explain.

You are thinking correctly. :) But here is the compromise. No motor has a perfectly flat torque curve. After the peak it almost invariably starts to drop fairly quickly. The 3k rpm example was an unlikely extreme, just to illustrate the difference. And this is why I said in that example, they both have the same curve, meaning one isnt any flatter than the other. Anytime you can make the curve flatter, you are increasing the "area under the curve," which means you make more HP more of the time. To use another extreme example that will never happen lets say the 6k rpm motor only makes 100 ftlbs until 5500, then shoots right up to the 300 peak only from 5500-6k. This makes more HP than the 3k rpm motor, but the 3k one makes more HP for more time. More HP for more time means more work done across the length of the track.

But in real life there would never be this extreme difference in curves, though a turbo honda is the closest you get since HP really skyrockets after vtec. My ex's Vortech '00 Si was a fine example of this. At first it just had 250 whp, and it was a stragith line up from 5500 to 8k rpm. Very "peaky." Using the weight of her car, which I believe was 2700 punds after all was said and done, I get 258 in the calc. So it was still running the trap speeds that you would expect from a car with 250 whp, and a more "normal" TQ/HP curve ;) So you can see it really is more about HP than anything else. TQ was a weak 170 ftlbs, but it STILL trapped 107. How? Because at ~7800 rpm where it peaked, the math gives me 252 HP (funny how the math always works out ;) ). If the motor made 170 ftlbs but peaked at 6k rpm and dropped, you would make a measly 194 HP, which would get the same car to a measly 97 mph. Since it could go to 8k, it was making 80% of its peak power from 5500-8k rpm, which is still a decent power band.

So the practical application of this is what I stated above. Many mods we do to DSMs dont increase the peak TQ, but move it up in the rpm range. The ability to launch the car does NOT change either. Its very rare to launch a DSM below 5500 rpm, by which time even the laggiest trbo can spool, and the most unforgiving TQ curve is already in the meat of it. And moving that TQ up always provides substantial gains in BOTH time and speed at the drag strip. :)

I know a lot of this may seem counter intuitive. But the math doesnt lie. How fast a car gets down the track depends on HP, not TQ. Of course driver and traction factor in, but assumng both cars have traction and both drivers know how to drive, the difference in outcomes will be based on HP not TQ. But again, they are both the same thing, since they are mathematically linked. But higher HP implies that TQ is being made higher in the rpm range. ;)

I did a quick search and found a site I havent seen in years. VERY good explanation of these things. His examples are real world and will illustrate things well for you.

http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/7177/torquehp.html

Great discussion of what torque, work, and HP are as well! You'll see where that 5252 number comes from ;) Enjoy.

I agree on most of what has been said. except there is no was the 25tq car will win the person would have to ease the clutch out to not stall the car or have some low gearing. in a 1 mile track it would win. by the time it got to that hp the other car would be halfway down the track.
little torque=stall big torque little hp= pop clutch and your off.
what is the 60' time for a 180whp gst?
I have the same whp on my gp and have 215+wtq and can pull a 2.2 and run 9.4 in the 1/8th with 3560 pounds of weight
tell me a gst with that weight and hp can pull the same.





marcus

Not trying to argue but. All I was trying to prove is that you have TQ and HP the work together. Looking at the equations from 95GSX link if proves my point. Thats all (good Discussion)
Torque * RPM

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

5252

Horsepower * 5252

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

RPM

You see for any of the equations to work you must have both characters TQ and HP.

Thanx, 95GSX for helping me prove my point.

Well everything kevin has taught us is most definetly correct (i admit that he is right, unconditionally), its because of the way things are defined(i.e. also the way they happen to be in life). the technical deffinitions of HP and TQ. So with a closer look of the definitions we can se that you still must have both to race. Because you cant go down the track with only TQ(static force) and you cant make horsepower without TQ( HP=TQ applied over a distance and time). once again thankyou kevin for the education. i feel that we all have learned a valuable lesson. :thumbsup:

OK well im a total novice at this and i always thought that torque ment better take off and hp gave u the rest. thus why i got a gs-t that has 210 hp and 210ftlb at 3000 rpm plus turbo. so now i question wether i made the right decision or not. so ill give u an example. say my gst 2.0L :210 hp at 6k rpm and 210ftlb at 3K rpm goes up agianst a prelude 2.2L 200 hp at 7K rpm and 156ftlb at 5250 rpm. who would win in the quarter?

dsm will win cuz it's a dsm..... the real question is : what if the car with the lower HP/TQ had WAY more stickers, and a bigger wing? what would happen then, eh?

!!!!!!the dsm god [aka 95 gsxracer]hath spoken!!!!!!!~~~~<earth trembles>~~~~

!!!!!!the dsm god [aka 95 gsxracer]hath spoken!!!!!!!~~~~<earth trembles>~~~~

thats just funny... :lol2: but yet so true. :eek7:

Not trying to argue but. All I was trying to prove is that you have TQ and HP the work together. Looking at the equations from 95GSX link if proves my point. Thats all (good Discussion)
Torque * RPM

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

5252

Horsepower * 5252

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

RPM

You see for any of the equations to work you must have both characters TQ and HP.

Thanx, 95GSX for helping me prove my point.


If you go back and actually read my posts, you'll find these little tidbits.


So its not they need tq, but they need low rpm power, and that requires low rpm torque (cant have hp without tq).

To try to seperate them as two seperate forces is absurd. They are methematically linked

A particlar tq at a particular rpm is ALWAYS the same HP. They can not be seperated like that. HP just includes rpm in its number.



The higher the rpm you can make a given torque, the higher your HP will be


So you're not saying anything I havent said half a dozen times cross several posts. ;)


The connection some people dont seem to be making is its not a competition between TQ and HP. Its between the car that makes low rpm torque, and the one that makes high rpm TQ. High rpm TQ is high HP (based on the formula for HP that we both quoted), and HP is a measure of the amount of work done over time, not torque. There is no way I can make this any simpler than that. :) This is not my opinion, or what I think is best. Its the laws of physics. You can argue with me, but not physics ;)

Okay so i suck at math and physics, but let me try to understand what yoy are saying. Okay so read this thing online where it said Gsts have 214lbft Tq @3000rpms, and 210 HP @ 6000rpms. Which equals 122 hp? Does that mean if we maximized our RPMS to 6000 when driving, we would have 244 hp. Im lost help. ALso is that why when you highly modify your car you need to cange the gears and gear ration or whatever. WHy do that? How can we maximize our RPMS?

Thanks 95 GSX_racer . I am not trying to separate the two just rying to show that they work together. I was just replying to the comment HP does every thing.

To tell you the truth I have argured with plenty of people on this issue on both sides. You have given the best argument.

SO kudoos to Kevin (seriously)

Glad you guys enjoy the discussion. I'll tell you, its nice to be able to discuss something like this for 3 pages on a forum, without it going to hell halfway down the first page with arguments, flaming, and other BS ;)

So on a different note, the point of the sheetmetal intake manifold that magnus motorsports and who ever else sell are to raise where the peak torque accures in the RPM range correct?

Correct. Im sure most poeple understand the concept of tuning where tq peaks by varying the length of the "header" runners in NT cars. The same principle applies to the intake manifold. Longer runners are better for low end torque, and the stockers are made with this in mind. The aftermarket intakes all have MUCH shorter runners, and large plenums, all to flow tons of air at high rpm. You do lose some low end, but since we have the turbo to make up for it, its not the same magnitude of a compromise it will be on a NT car. Same reason we can run 3" exhausts and its all good. ;) Intake manifold can not only add 30-40 HP, but move peak power from 6500 where it will peak with stock manifold, to about 7k. That means you can now rev to 8k plus and still be making good power. Which brings us right back to the gearing discussion again :)