Torque and Horsepower - A Primer

From Bruce Augenstein (sometime in the 1990s)

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 :-).

The Only Thing You Really Need to Know

Repeat after me. "It is better to make torque at high rpm than at low rpm, because you
can take advantage of *gearing*." :-)

Thanks for your time.

Bruce

But this is not all on the subject. There are other views as well, continue reading...

Setting the Record Straight on Torque and Power

- Thomas Barber

Over the past decade, I have encountered any number of articles, on the Internet, that
endeavor to explain torque and power. One of those articles, authored by a fellow
named Bruce Augenstein, has appeared on dozens of independent Web sites, and seems
to have had a strong influence on the popular understanding of this subject. Regardless
of his intentions, his article has promoted several fallacious ideas, along with a dubious
overall understanding of the subject. Before we look at what he wrote, it will be helpful
for us to begin by identifying specific criteria that are useful in assessing the merit of his
(or any other) effort to explain this subject:

• Foremost, the explanation should articulate the essential fact that acceleration at
any time is proportional to power, along with the essential fact that the
acceleration associated with any specific amount of engine torque, depends on
the engine speed.
 • Regardless of whether the explanation articulates those essential facts, it must
not espouse any fallacious notions that are contrary to those facts.
• If the explanation endeavors to explain any fundamental physical concepts such
as torque, work, and power, those explanations should be fundamentally correct.

Before looking at what he wrote, we should also take a quick review of the essential
facts. If you turn the crank of a well to lift a 1-lb bucket at a steady rate of 1 ft/min, you
are doing work at the rate of 1 ft-lb/min. This is simply the product of the force and the
velocity, and turning it around, force is equal to power divided by the (non-zero)
velocity. If you substitute that expression for force into the familiar equation that relates
force, mass and acceleration, you get:

acceleration = power / (mass x velocity)

If you multiply the product of torque and rotational speed by twice pi, you effectively
translate that product to the equivalent product of force and linear velocity, i.e., you
calculate the power.

acceleration = engine_torque x 2 x pi x engine_speed / (velocity x mass)

Hence, given the vehicular velocity that is applicable to some point in time, the
acceleration that you get, for a given amount of engine torque and a given mass,
depends on the engine speed. Of course, if the ratio of engine speed to vehicle speed is
given, as it effectively is while the gear ratio is held constant, acceleration will then vary
according to the engine torque. Here we go:

“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 … 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 … at 4000 rpm in the same gear, yet … 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. ... 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? :-)”

It is true that 300 lb-ft of torque will yield the same acceleration at 2000 rpm as it will at
4000 rpm in the same gear, and the power will of course be double at 4000 rpm.
However, the force that the driver feels at any instant is proportional to the driver’s
acceleration, which is the same as the vehicular acceleration, and because vehicular
acceleration is always proportional to power, it is obvious that the force felt by the
driver at any instant is proportional to power. Yet, he asserts that “torque is the only
thing that the driver feels”, that “horsepower is just sort of an esoteric measurement”,
and that “horsepower has nothing to do with what a driver *feels*”. No honest,
unbiased assessment of what he wrote could deny that the bulk and gist of it is simply
nonsense. The only place where what he was thinking is uncertain, is where he says that
torque and horsepower “get friendly at 5252 rpm”. It’s anyone’s guess what he was
thinking when he wrote that, but the number 5252 is merely an artifact of using English
units of measure for torque and power.

He argues that power is meaningless since according to him, the acceleration that you
get for a given amount of engine torque is the same no matter the engine speed. That is
what he encourages the reader to infer from the fact that, in a given gear, the
acceleration that you get for a specific amount of engine torque does not vary. That is
simply a ruse. The pertinent facts are that wheel torque at a given wheel speed depends
equally on engine torque and engine speed, and that the acceleration associated with a
given amount of engine torque always depends on the engine speed. These highly
pertinent facts can be understood via the fact that power is the same at both locations
(ignoring friction), and via the fact that power is essentially equal to the product of
torque and rotational speed.

That excerpt came from his section titled, “The Case For Torque”, which took us right
to the heart of the problem with his understanding of this subject. Near the beginning of
his article, the section titled “Force, Work and Time”, offers this explanation of power:

“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.”

This explanation of power muddles the connection between power and acceleration,
because it doesn’t reveal the meaning of instantaneous power, as distinct from that of
average power, which has no simple relationship to instantaneous acceleration.
Additionally, energy isn’t spent unless work is performed, and while a minimum force
is required to overcome the force of gravity and move the weight at all, it makes no
sense to talk of the force sufficient to move an object a specific distance. These
misunderstandings clearly reveal a lack of basic knowledge, but they are innocent, and
do not suggest any dubious agenda. However, smack dab in the middle of his
theoretical explanation of power, he spiced things up a bit:

“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.”

Does this mean that power cannot be measured except by first measuring torque? Why
else would this be “important to understand”, or worth mentioning? The notion, that
power is somehow less real than torque, is easily identifiable as a theme of the article.
Yet, it has no meaning or interpretation that can be confirmed experimentally, and as far
as the orthodoxy and methodology of empirical science is concerned, notions of that sort
are meaningless. This criticism would be no less valid even if it were true that power is
only ever deduced by measuring torque and rotational speed. Of course, with inertial
dynamometers, you can deduce power from the drum’s angular acceleration and its
inertial moment, without measuring torque. For that matter, if you were to apply an
engine to the task of lifting an elevator car and you inserted a continuously variable
transmission between them to allow you to stabilize the speed of both the engine and the
elevator car at any desired engine speed, you would then have a brake dynamometer of
sorts. You would deduce power by multiplying the elevator’s steady velocity by its
weight (minus the counter-weight), and as with brake dynamometers in general, that
measurement will be unaffected by the engine’s inertial resistance to acceleration.

Next came the section I discussed first, and then a section titled, “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 … describe a waterwheel I got to watch awhile ago.
This was a pretty massive wheel …, rotating lazily on a shaft which was connected to
the works inside a flour mill. … the wheel typically generated about 2600(!) foot
pounds of torque. …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 :-). … 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.
”

Even though there are no errors per se in this, I still find it annoying. He started by
saying that we care about horsepower because making torque at higher rpm means that
you can take advantage of gearing. The gist of the anecdote is that even though the
torque of the waterwheel itself is substantial, if gearing is applied to increase the output
speed, the torque is reduced accordingly. He didn’t say anything about why that
happens. He produced a value for the output torque, without any explanation of how it
was calculated. He calculated the power, but he did not mention that power, being the
same at the output as it is at the input, explains why the output torque must decrease in
order to compensate for the increase in output speed. At the end, the point of this
anecdote seemed to be to reiterate the fact that torque by itself doesn’t determine the
capacity to perform work over time. The formula that you use to calculate power from
torque and rotational speed tells you that, and although that is certainly relevant, that
fact by itself doesn’t shed much light on the connection between power and
acceleration.
Next came the long section titled, “At the Dragstrip”, the essence of which is:

“… 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. … The cars are geared identically …. First, each car will push you back in the
seat … 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 … be significantly
faster than the L98, even though it won't pull any harder. …. 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 ...

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... 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*...”

In this section, he argues that greater power can yet be advantageous because it allows
the driver to wait longer before shifting to the next gear. He repeatedly asserts that
greater power allows you to pull “longer”, but not “harder”. He consistently applied the
constraint that the two cars that he was comparing in order to illustrate what he was
trying to say, share identical transmissions and identical overall gear ratios. That
constraint obscures the pertinent fact that the car with greater peak power may well
exhibit greater peak wheel torque in each individual gear, even if its peak engine torque
is less than that of the other vehicle. This section, which accounts for nearly half of the
article, mistakenly assumes that the significance of power can be understood and
explained by considering only the peak power. It then compounds that mistake by
giving a ridiculous, bogus explanation of the advantage of greater peak power.

Toward the end of the article, in the section titled, “At The Bonneville Salt Flats”, he
talked about the fact that the power peak is the best engine speed (regardless of the
vehicle speed):

“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 …
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. ”

Note first that it isn’t generally necessary to re-gear a car in order to select an engine
speed at or near the power peak in lieu of the torque peak. Low vehicle speed, where
1st gear is the gear that offers the greatest power, is the exception of course.

That was the closest that he ever got to saying that acceleration is proportional to
power. It is in the vicinity of the target, but because it deals specifically with the power
peak and does not say plainly that acceleration is proportional to power, it doesn’t hit
the bulls-eye. Without a clear understanding of the fact that acceleration is always
proportional to power, there is no understanding of why optimal shifting consists of
always selecting the gear that yields the greatest power. Note also that even though his
calculation correctly implies that wheel torque is proportional to the product of engine
torque and engine speed (and thus to power), he never plainly said so, and he never said
anything about why it is true.

For his summary, he chose to repeat his perspective on why power is relevant:

“The Only Thing You Really Need to Know

Repeat after me. "It is better to make torque at high rpm than at low rpm, because you
can take advantage of *gearing*." :-)”

This is not particularly conducive to an insightful understanding of why power and

engine speed matter. Engine torque reveals the amount of work performed over any
specific interval of crankshaft rotation, whereas acceleration at any time is proportional
to the rate at which work is being performed, which rate depends as much on engine
speed as it depends on engine torque.

The facts that are pertinent to a proper understanding of this subject are conspicuously
missing from Augenstein’s article, having been replaced by bogus ideas. Instead of
saying plainly that acceleration is proportional to power, he defiantly asserted that only
engine torque has anything to do with what a driver feels. He made audacious claims
about the measurability of power, and his explanations of the significance of power,
were bogus. There is very little in his article that qualifies as a usefully correct
explanation of anything, and most of what he espouses is bogus.

And one more...

Plato and Socrates Discuss Torque, Power and Acceleration

- Thomas Barber, March 25, 2007

Plato: Dude, nice toga. Say, I’ve just been reading up on torque and power. Torque, it
seems, is the rotational equivalent of force in straight-line motion.

Socrates: To fully appreciate what that means and get us off on a solid footing, let’s
start with a quick look at the familiar equation: F = M x A. This equation tells us that
whenever an object’s present velocity is changing, the acceleration is given by the ratio
of force to mass. Manifestly, the greater an object’s mass, the greater the force needed
to yield a specified amount of acceleration. Mass also determines how much kinetic
energy an object contains when it is moving at a given velocity. In rotational motion,
that familiar equation is replaced by a similar equation: Torque = Moment-of-Inertia x
Angular Acceleration. The moment of inertia determines how much torque is needed to
yield a given amount of angular acceleration, as well as how much kinetic energy an
object contains when spinning at a given angular velocity. When an ice skater in a spin
brings his or her arms in closer to the torso, there is no loss of kinetic energy, and the
observed increase in angular velocity reveals that the moment of inertia has been made
smaller.
Plato: To find the torque associated with a straight-line force, you multiply the force by
the length of the lever arm, which is always measured along a line of direction that is
square to the direction of the force. Whenever I tighten a bolt, if I vary the length of the
lever arm, the force that I sense in my hand and arm will change, yet the torque doesn’t
change unless the amount of friction in the threads changes. Whenever I think about
overcoming friction, I think about work and power.

Socrates: To find the work associated with any steady force, you multiply the force by
the distance covered. Whereas work is cumulative over time and distance, power is the
measure of how quickly work is being performed, instantaneously in time. Work and
energy are truly the same concept, so the measure of how quickly work is being
performed, is also the measure of how quickly energy is being spent. If you turn the
crank of a well to lift a 1-lb bucket at a steady rate of 1 ft/min, you are doing work at the
steady rate of 1 ft-lb/min, which is simply the product of the force and the velocity. If
the radius of the spool is 1 ft, then the torque applied to the crank by the 1-lb bucket,
will be 1 lb-ft. In each complete rotation of the crank, the bucket will move a distance
equal to the radius of the spool multiplied by twice pi. It follows that the work
associated with a specific amount of torque, for one complete rotation, may be found by
multiplying the torque by twice pi. The calculation of power from torque and rotational
speed is similar. The following chart summarizes:

straight-line motion rotational motion

work force x distance torque x number of rotations x 2 x pi
power force x velocity torque x angular velocity x 2 x pi

The expression for power in rotational motion reveals that you always multiply by the
same constant value (2 x pi) to calculate power from the product of torque and angular
velocity. Note, though, that this assumes that angular velocity is measured in complete
rotations per unit of time. You could just as easily measure angular velocity using a
smaller angular distance, such that you would have to multiply that smaller angular
distance by twice pi in order to yield one complete rotation. If you measured angular
velocity using that smaller angular distance (which is known as a “radian”), the
expression for power would be simply the product of torque and angular velocity, i.e.,
you would not multiply by twice pi to calculate power. Hence, the business of
multiplying by twice pi is equivalent in effect to converting from one unit of measure to
another, and it is correct to say that power is simply equal to the product of torque and
angular velocity.

Plato: If the bucket is raised at steady velocity, its kinetic energy will be steady. Only
its potential energy will be changing, and the power will be simply the static weight of
the bucket multiplied by the steady velocity. It is easy enough to measure instantaneous
velocity when the velocity is steady, but in real-world scenarios, doesn’t it get more
complicated?

Socrates: A common approach to measuring the power of an engine is to use a

regulated brake to hold the engine steady at the desired speed. You have to measure the
force that resists the pull of the engine on the brake, so that you can deduce the engine
torque from that force and from the lever arm, which you also have to figure out. And,
of course, you have to measure the engine speed. Dynamometers of this sort are known
as “brake dynamometers”. Conceptually, you could implement a brake dynamometer of
sorts by applying the engine to the task of lifting an elevator car, using a continuously
variable transmission in the coupling. The CVT would allow you to stabilize the speed
of both the engine and the elevator car at any desired engine speed. To deduce power,
you would multiply the elevator’s steady velocity by its weight, and as with brake
dynamometers in general, those measurements would be unaffected by the engine’s
inertial moment. The other common approach is to hitch the engine to a massive drum
that spins freely. As long as the increase in the kinetic energy of the drum is the only
energy sink, the power will be given by the instantaneous rate of increase of the drum’s
kinetic energy, which can be deduced from the drum’s moment of inertia and its
instantaneous angular acceleration. Dynamometers of this type are known as “inertial
dynamometers”. The angular acceleration can be measured with the help of an
accelerometer, or deduced from closely spaced measurements of time and angular
distance. The drum’s moment of inertia can be measured separately, or calculated from
its dimensions and the density of its substance. The increase in the kinetic energy of the
engine itself is an energy sink. The measurements are influenced to a degree by the
engine’s moment of inertia, and they reveal, to a degree, the ability of the engine to
quickly increase its work output. As such, measurements taken on an inertial
dynamometer give a more realistic picture of an engine’s actual performance on the
road. For purposes of ordinary performance tuning on a test bench, that sort of accuracy
isn’t particularly beneficial, whereas the ability to keep the engine running steadily for
extended periods can be beneficial.

Plato: I read somewhere that to measure power, you measure torque and then you
deduce power from torque. That supposedly demonstrates that power is just an
abstraction of torque.

Socrates: Clearly, there are various ways to measure power independently of torque.
Moreover, the notion, that power is less real than torque, has no meaning or
interpretation that is capable of being confirmed experimentally. As far as the
orthodoxy and methodology of empirical science is concerned, notions of that sort are
meaningless.

Plato: I should be able to measure the power of my mare, by measuring how quickly
she is able to lift a large bucket of water from my well. If I adjust the amount of water
such that the velocity is steady, the actual force will be equal to the weight of the
bucket. That way, I won’t have to measure the actual strain in the rope, and of course, it
will be easier to measure the velocity.

Socrates: In the future, a fellow by the name of James Watt will determine that his
horse is able to perform work at an ongoing, instantaneous rate of 33,000 foot-pounds of
work per minute. If you measure torque in lb-ft and rotational speed in rpm, and you
want to express the power in hp, you can use the conversion factor: 1 hp = 33,000 ft-
lb/min. The value of twice pi is 6.283, and that divided by 33,000 is about 1/5252. So,
as long as torque is measured in lb-ft, rotational speed is measured in rpm, and you want
to express the power in hp, you can take a short cut and divide the product of torque and
rotational speed by 5252.

Plato: Does that mean that torque and power are equivalent at 5252 rpm?

Socrates: Nope. Torque and power are distinct properties, with each being analytically
related to acceleration in its own special way. The value 5252 is merely an artifact of
the English system of measure, and that value is not the least bit special if another
system of measure is used. In most of the world, torque is expressed in Newton-meters
(N-m), and power is expressed in Watts or kilowatts (kW), which we use for electrical
power. The engine speed where torque in lb-ft and power in hp coincidentally take on
the same numerical value, happens to fall within the operating range of most engines, so
on dynamometer plots, it is convenient to use a single number scale for both torque in
lb-ft and power in hp. When that is done, the two curves will cross at 5252 rpm.

Plato: But, it seems that torque should determine acceleration, so why does power
matter?

Socrates: Power matters because at any point in time, acceleration is proportional to

the rate at which the engine is performing work. Engine torque tells you how much
work is performed over any specific interval of crankshaft rotation, but does not tell you
how quickly the work is being performed. It is of course possible to deduce acceleration
from the engine torque using other information such as the overall gear ratio and wheel
diameter, but that doesn’t change the pertinent and useful fact that at any point in time,
acceleration is proportional to power. Recall that power is equal to the product of force
and velocity. If you turn that around, it says that force is equal to power divided by the
(non-zero) velocity. If you substitute that expression for force into the familiar equation
that relates force, mass, and acceleration, you get this:

acceleration = power / (mass x velocity) =>

acceleration = engine_torque x 2 x pi x engine_speed / (velocity x mass)

Hence, given the vehicular velocity that is applicable to some point in time, the
acceleration that you get, for a given amount of engine torque and a given mass,
depends on the engine speed. Of course, if the ratio of engine speed to vehicle speed is
given, as it effectively is while the gear ratio is held constant, acceleration will then vary
according to the engine torque. (Note that if you plug a set of values into that equation
to calculate acceleration, in order to get proper units of measure for acceleration, you
need to use lbf instead of lb for the force component of the torque. 1 lbf is the force of
gravity on 1 lb of mass: 1 lbf = 1 lb x 32.2 ft/s^2 = 32.2 ft-lb/s^2 = 4.45 N.)

Plato: But, if acceleration is proportional to power, why does acceleration track with
the engine torque curve as the engine speed and the vehicle speed increase in a given
gear?

Socrates: The perception of a contradiction, between the fact that wheel torque tracks
with the engine torque while the gear ratio remains fixed, and the fact that acceleration
is proportional to power, is a false perception. The equations reveal that the
proportionality between acceleration and power is different at different vehicle speeds.
The acceleration that you get for a given amount of power decreases as the vehicle
speed increases, yet, at any point in time, acceleration is proportional to power, and
depends as much on engine speed as on engine torque.

Plato: What does this mean from the perspective of gear selection strategy?

Socrates: Whenever you change gears, as long as you are quick to avoid any
significant loss in vehicle speed during the up-shift, the proportionality between power
and acceleration will be steady across the up-shift. Hence, in order for acceleration to
be steady across the up-shift, power must be steady across the up-shift, which means
that the engine torque must increase to compensate for the drop in engine speed. If the
throttle is held open so that actual power follows the engine’s power curve, the engine
speed must transition between two equal-power points on opposite sides of the power
peak. Note that shifting such that power will be steady across the up-shift, and shifting
such that you are always using the gear that yields the greatest power, are two different
ways to describe the same optimal strategy.

Plato: What would happen if the engine torque were to be held steady across the up-
shift, i.e., you kept the engine speed within the flat region of the engine torque curve?

Socrates: The acceleration would drop abruptly at the up-shift, matching the drop in
engine speed. Let’s look at it another way, and let’s take a quick side trip that may help
to put the significance of power into better perspective. In an electrical transformer, any
increase in voltage between the primary and the secondary windings, must be
accompanied by a compensating decrease in current. Power is equal to the product of
voltage and current, and as the saying goes, “power in is power out”. That saying
applies as well to the physics of mechanical motion. Except for the energy losses due to
friction, the product of torque and rotational speed will be the same at the wheel as it is
at the engine, and as it is anywhere else that you measure it along the drive train. You
want the wheel torque to be steady across the up-shift, and since the wheel speed will
also be steady at the up-shift, the product of torque and rotational speed will be steady at
the up-shift, not only at the wheel, but at the engine as well. That, of course, means that
the engine torque must increase to compensate for the drop in engine speed.

Plato: Okay, but given two vehicles that are identical except for the engines, the one
with the greater peak engine torque will still exhibit greater peak acceleration in each
gear, right?

Socrates: If the vehicle with greater peak power is allowed to use a different final drive
ratio, then by shifting its engine torque peak to lower vehicle speed, the corresponding
wheel torque will increase. Thus, the vehicle with greater peak power may exhibit
greater peak acceleration in each gear, even if its peak engine torque is less than that of
the other vehicle.

Plato: Well, there are still certain benefits to emphasizing torque in lieu of power,
aren’t there?

Socrates: Certain effects, such as improved acceleration from a full stop and less
frequent shifting, are the result of a comparatively flat, uniform spread of engine output,
starting at comparatively low engine speed. It makes perfect sense to attribute such
effects to a de-emphasis on peak power. However, logically speaking, torque and power
are not opposites, and it does not follow from the fact that you have de-emphasized peak
power, that you have emphasized torque. Of course, if there exists some other
justification for the practice of equating the engine’s low-speed performance to torque,
that will also constitute justification for equating a de-emphasis on peak power to an
emphasis on torque, never mind that torque and power are not opposites. At the wheel,
the affinity between low rotational speed and torque is quite genuine, owing to the fact
that the transmission is used to exchange rotational speed for torque. But this effect
does not apply to the engine. The practice, of equating engine performance at low and
moderate engine speed exclusively to torque, seems to derive essentially from the fact
that the peak engine torque occurs at a lower engine speed than does the peak power.
This seems a weak justification when you consider that the peak engine torque reveals
the engine performance accurately at only a single engine speed. That engine speed is
often above the midpoint of the engine’s operating range, and no matter how low the
actual engine speed, the actual performance depends partly on the engine speed, and is
fully revealed by the actual power.

Plato: What else?

Socrates: Many people seem to believe that the full explanation, for why longer stroke
generally means improved low-end performance, is simply that by increasing the
effective lever arm (the crank throw distance is one-half of the stroke distance), you
increase the torque. For whatever reason, they don’t realize that if it were that simple,
the improvement in engine torque would be uniform over the operating range, which
would not explain why the performance improvement is specific to low engine speed.
They have somehow gotten the idea that any change, that directly improves engine
torque, will automatically favor lower engine speed. Clearly, it isn’t that simple. If you
increase the stroke while keeping the volume displacement constant, the piston surface
area will decrease, which will nullify the effect of the increased lever arm, since the
force depends on the surface area of the piston face. Engine torque corresponds to the
amount of energy spent over any specific interval of crankshaft rotation, and that
amount of energy depends on the amount of oxygen used. It follows that the variation
in engine torque with engine speed reveals the variation in the amount of air captured
per individual intake stroke. Cylinder shape interacts with the duration of the intake
stroke to influence the amount of air that is captured on the intake stroke. When the
cylinder is made long and skinny, the effect is to increase the amount of air captured at
low engine speed, and to decrease the amount of air captured at high engine speed.
Note also that if the relationship between stroke and torque were as direct as the naïve
explanation suggests, you could get free energy just by making the cylinder long and
skinny.

Plato: I need to go get measured for a new toga, but before I run along, I’d like to know
what you think about the various claims that engine torque is the true indicator of engine
performance.

Socrates: Those sorts of claims have to be interpreted to mean that you are always
supposed to get the same acceleration for a given amount of engine torque, no matter the
engine speed at which that much engine torque is delivered. There simply is no other
meaningful, tangible interpretation of those claims. Yet, as we have already seen, wheel
torque depends just as much on engine speed as it does on engine torque. Anyone who
is not convinced of that, need only discover for themselves that at any of the various
vehicle speeds where the transmission will permit you to choose between two equal-
torque points on opposite sides of the torque peak, the acceleration will be dramatically
greater in the lower of the two gears. It is logically dubious to infer, from the fact that
the peak power does a poor job of revealing the engine’s performance at low and
moderate engine speeds, that torque is the true indicator of engine performance.

OK Bruce, if you are still out there. It's your turn.

-Brad

AutoAnything.com has the guaranteed lowest prices and free shipping on Corvette auto
parts. Let your engine breathe with a performance air filter or air intake, decrease back-
end pressure with Flowmaster exhaust systems, and achieve the maximum benefit from
all your modifications with a Superchips tuner.

Home || Performance || Pictures || Other lists || General info || VetteNet info || Parts
Web space hosting courtesy EPage Free Classifieds.