i was having this little discussion with my friend who owns a 04 civic today. We were wondering whether his basic civic or my lancer es is faster. So i came home, looked on yahoo auto and found that civic has 127hp@6300rpm and lancer es has 120hp @ 5500rpm. So what do the numbers mean..... doesnt the car get more hp as rpm goes higher? then wouldnt the hp on lancer be higher too when its at 6300rpm or higher?

and dang, my car had never gone pass 4000rpm, im a really "safe" driver......

 

Um, no, your car wouldn't have more HP at 6300 RPM.

Rev limiter is around 6250.

Your car is faster. You have more torque (I assume), so you'll take off faster. He'd slowly track you down at higher speeds because of the 7 hp, but you'd probably win. (Assuming the drivers have equal skills)

 

nonono! we're not racing! we were just having a "creative discussion"! lol

 

if the rpm doesnt affect horsepower then why do they list it? it shows how quickly u can get the hp? like lower rpm=quicker ur horsepower will show=more torque?

 

Whatever you want to call it. Just stating facts.

 

hp numbers are worthless. i beat one when i was stock if thats what you wanna know. it was a 2000 or something 2Dr Civic Ex Manual

 

The Lancers puts out 130lbs/ft of torque whereas the Civics (non Si) are somewhere in the 90's or low 100's (I forget, and I'm too lazy to check). It really could go either way, but if your engines were racing the 4g94 would probably win.

 

The RPM is just there to tell you when your peak horsepower is, in this case the lancer reaches its peak faster than the civic. Civics are very low torque engines, so unless he does a 6000 RPM drop, you shoud win. If you look at old school muscle cars, they reach their peak horsepower and torque very early, which is why they are so dangerous in a drag, basically as soon as they hit the gas they go, whereas cars like evos, stis, pretty much all japanese cars need to get the engine revving high before they can really get moving.

 

^^^Ohhhh that makes a lot of sense

Edit:
wow u really are a safe driver, have u ever gone over 80pmh??

 

Thats what makes the Honda s2000 so funny, under around 6-7000 RPM, the car is basically a heavy civic. Once its gets up there however.....

 

The Civic would probably start gaining by 3rd gear and continue to the end of the "racetrack". Torque has diminishing returns as you go faster and use higher gears, when strictly comparing hp to tq. They really need each other in order to gain anything substantial, as such, if given a choice I'd take a 5hp/5tq improvement over a 10hp/0tq or 0hp/10tq. This is based off my own observations and logical assumptions though. Whether it has any science to back it up, I don't know.

 

HP isn't the most important factor in being fast, it is torque that is more important, because it is torque that gets you going, and HP that keeps you going once you get there.

 

useable power and a broadened power range works nice, throw on an intake and exhaust ull rape him u goodie.

 

i do have an injen SRI.... but i have too much heavy stuffs on my car! i have like 2 basketballs in my trunk! haha, and me! im hella heavy, friggin 120lb!
well seriously, im not gonna race him cuz i have an auto and my frd has a manual.... and he has that farting missile launcher while i only have an intake.

i think i went 90 on 101 freeway once but i didnt pay attention to the speedos, i was hella nervous and busy looking around if there were any cops~ ~. I've only driven 1000 miles on my car since i got it in november. haha

 

120lbs? you a girl?