Given 2 identical EVOs (including gear ratios) that rev to 8000rpm. I'll take the one with higher HP and/or area under the graph. Torque and HP are related, you can't have one without the other. Remeber Torque breaks parts ....

 

That's hard to answer without a real torque curve and spending a good deal of time on it. But let me say this, it's about the area under the curve. You find the area under the curve by taking the total area defined a starting and an ending RPM point; the torque curve itself; and the X axis. You want to spend the most amount of time in the fattest part of the curve as possible. You can maximize this by choosing good shift points.

So to determine if 1 or 2 is better you'd need to find the best shift points, find the RPM ranges for each gear, calculate the area for each gear, and add the areas together. The highest total wins.

 

Do you use MRAM or a calculator to get the integral of the torque curve?

 

Torque= Off the line. After that Horse power kicks in. Horsepower= thats my understanding. The cars that are real performers are all about HP. There torque are always lower than Hp.

 

True, torque breaks things. But high HP often means a peaky power curve. On small displacement turbo cars that often means not much below 3000-4000 RPM and a very quick ramp up in power somewhere in that range. Not unlivable for drag racing. But if it's all about the corners like you sig implies, not such a great thing for throttle on cornering stability.

 

Also runing Anit-lag

 

Understand that engines do not make horsepower at all. They make torque. Torque is a twisting force and engines clearly twist when they create power. Horsepower is simply torque measured over time.

 

more torque more speed.

 

Torque isnt a measurement of twisting force. Its a measurment of how much power it takes to move an imaginary object.

A simple example would be putting a football team against a rack and having them push that rack. You can measure the amount of torque created by that team based on the weight of the object and a few other factors. Torque gets you to a speed and HP holds you there.

Twisty force

 

" Torque is the only thing that a driver feels, and horsepower is just sort of an esoteric measurement in that context."

"...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..."

Both of these are excerpts from the following Primer on Torque and Horsepower from where else but the Vette Net.

 

I think with 600lb-ft traction might be an issue in most cars, or at least the road legal ones . I think that even the Evo's AWD won't save you from massive wheelspin . I know you were just using it as an assumption for your example, but it made me laugh.

Aston

 

Maybe this will help you.

Torque is a force that tends to rotate or turn things. You generate torque any time you apply a force using a wrench. Tightening the lug nuts on your wheels is a good example. When you use a wrench, you apply a force to the handle. This force creates a torque on the lug nut, which tends to turn the lug nut. Torque is usually measured in English units such as pound-feet (lb-ft), although the international standard is the Newton-meter (1 lb-ft is equal to 1.356 Nm). Notice that the torque units contain a distance and a force. To calculate the torque, you just multiply the force by the distance from the center. In the case of the lug nuts, if the wrench is a foot long, and you put 200 pounds of force on it, you are generating 200 pound-feet of torque. If you use a 2-foot wrench, you only need to put 100 pounds of force on it to generate the same torque.

In a car, the engine converts the horsepower it generates into torque by turning the crank shaft. The combustion of gas in the cylinder creates pressure against the piston. That pressure creates a force on the piston, which pushes it down. The force is transmitted from the piston to the connecting rod, and from the connecting rod into the crankshaft. The point where the connecting rod attaches to the crank shaft is some distance from the center of the shaft. The horizontal distance changes as the crankshaft spins, so the torque also changes, since torque equals force multiplied by distance. Only the horizonal distance is used in determining the torque in an engine. When the piston is at the top of its stroke, the connecting rod points straight down at the center of the crankshaft. No torque is generated in this position, because only the force that acts on the lever in a direction perpendicular to the lever generates a torque.

 

I've heard two saying that I think sum it up pretty well.

"Torque is what gets you off the line, horsepower is what takes you down the track"

"Torque is how hard you hit the wall, horsepower is how far you take the wall with you"

 

Torque is applied force or effort, that is to say it is a static measurment. When that force is applied to the crank AND the crank turns the engine IS making HP or doing work if you prefer that term. Think of turning a head bolt with a torque wrench. At first the applied force turns the bolt and work is done, unless you twist it off the bolt eventually stops turning stops even though you may still be appling force (pressure) to the wrench. Torque must always = HP at 5252 RPM. After 5252 prm no engine has more torque than HP.

If you can find a simpler explaination buy it.

I will take HP. My logging tractors have torque and lots of it but I doubt they would win many road or drag races.

 

I don't think that everyone quite gets it. en1gma's quotes are pretty good at summing it up. A good example would be a larger bike, with lots of torque, vs. a sportbike with comparitively mediocre torque and high horsepower. The larger bike will get off the line faster, but after a second or two, the sportbike will quickly catch up.