Can't you just see Barney Navarro sitting down at a desk in a dark corner of his shop with an old Bic pen and a couple of loose leaf pieces of paper? I bet he didn't even take time to wash his hands before he started writing. After an hour or so, h... <BR><BR>To read the rest of this blog entry from The Jalopy Journal, click here.
Haven't even finished the article yet, but damn does he do a great job of simplifying a concept many only barely grasp. Thanks for posting, great insight!
Old School Technology for sure !! Keep reading to part on Foot Pounds Of Torque !!! I love this stuff !!! >>>>.
This really becomes exciting when you consider that you can also factor the caloric value of energy used by the muscle mass of the animal, when you calculate all of the factors a horse and an engine are very similar, if you factor respiration, heat loss to surface area, friction and structural resistance you will find that an engine is not that much less efficient than a natural system, you also are not that much more in the emissions department when you consider the animal discharge as raw, once broken down and rendered inert they are close. when you use ethanol as your fuel source we become even more efficient. We can pull the fuel from the corn and still feed the horse or cattle the grain. If we went further to retrieve the free methanes from the bacterial decomposition of the animal discharge and use the heat discharge from all processes we would most likely surpass the efficiency of the natural system. Not bad for monkeys in pants.
Great read, very easy to follow/read. I like how he compares examples like the two men, very cool indeed. Thanks for posting it!
Barney would be using an old "Papermate" pen my friend. I think BIC was not around at that time, at least not in the U.S.. None the less, that's very cool to consider. Barney was a thinker.
"Of course you measure distance in feet" What else but the English system of measurements would anyone ever need?
It's guys like Navarro that helped bring hotrods, V8's and racing into the new 'atomic' age. , Thanks to the efforts of these early gear heads we have an affection for 32's, 57's and rails. I wonder where the world would be without Navarro, Isky and Parks??. More importantly, I wonder where Ryan would be without Navarro, Isky and Parks??. (But I do think that Barney used a inkwell and not a ballpoint)... . _______________________________________________ Is it true that when a Prius gets hit, an Eskimo kills a baby seal?
Physics 101, as taught by a master. Really great stuff, cuts right to the heart of one of the things we're all deeply involved with . . . power and how to get it transferred to the ground. Love the diagram at the top of page 2, showing the relative torgues of 1st, 2nd, and "top" gear. Beautiful practical application of that good old physics equation, torque = (force) X (length of the lever arm). Great stuff, Ryan.
We were waiting in line at Franklin BBQ here in Austin, (it is the best in town for sure) and one of my buddies asked me a similar question, (what is the difference between HP and Torque). I sorta knew horsepower was a formula based on torque and that there were animals involved, but had to Google it. Thanks, this is much better than what I found.
SAE has a description and explanation. Part of it. In the U.S. the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) has, since 1903, defined one horsepower as the ability to lift 33,000 pounds one foot in one minute, or 550 pounds one foot in one second. In Germany, however, the horsepower was established as the ability to lift 45,000 kg (there are 0.4536 kg to the pound) one centimeter (2.54 cm to the inch) in one minute, which translates to 98.629% of an SAE horsepower, and you'll just have to trust us with the math. The Germans, by the way, standardized the horsepower through a system of measurement called "JS," the abbreviation for the German term for horsepower, now classified as "DIN." The DIN rating has been adopted by the International Standards Organization - ISO - as the European standard. Nowadays we have the JIS, or Japanese Standards Institute. It rates horsepower the same as the ISO, but both are different (not by much, but they're still different) from the SAE. For practical purposes, consider them all equal. Okay so far? You can see the rest here. http://www.secondchancegarage.com/public/201.cfm
I've never really got into racing, but this is the stuff that does it for me. According to this article I currently have three "HAMB friendly" automobiles with a combined HP of 0 and torque is about the same. Good readin'!
I've taken some mechanical engineering courses, and knew the "book" answers, but Barney's explanation makes visualization of torque and horsepower much easier. Especially interesting to me was his statement about a man being able to exert the same torque as an engine (albeit a small one at 180 ft-lbs). I wish Barney had been my ME teacher!
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