I was just thinking of a few things and the scenario of torque vs. horsepower and the RPM range slipped into my pea like brain. So which would you rather have more of, HP or Torque? And in what RPM range would you like it? Maybe more torque at a lower RPM with more HP at a higher RPM. Explain what you prefer and why you dig it. I have differnet opinions on the topic at different times of the day. I don't want this to turn into a shit storm. Just some opinions based on prefernece or experience.
You need enough torque to launch your car effectively. If you have a great suspension system capable of handling torque and planting tires, get as much as you can use. If you've got a heavy vehicle you'll need more down low. If you plan on towing stuff, you'll need low-end grunt. If you'e got a light car with ancient suspension, hard tires, and you know it'll never tow anything, why build torque into the equation? You won't need much and you'd be better served building power in the higher rpm ranges where you can enjoy it. High performance cars are a combination of systems engineered to work in sync. Build your car to excel where you want it to, and stick to the plan. My cars are all pretty heavy, so I've designed their powerplants to make good torque. If I were building a T-bucket, a different game plan would be in order. Scotch~!
When the plan was laid for the motor in my '57, I figured it was a heavy street car and that building a motor with lots of low end grunt would be the way to go. We hit the nail on the head, maybe too much so. I have so much low end power, the tires spin as soon as I come off the line. Even launching easy puts em up in smoke. Then when I get it upstairs, it doesn't pull that hard. I feel that if it bogged off the line a bit, it might stand a chance at hooking up. If I had to do it again...Bigger cam, more converter, better exhaust. All in due time
For a heavy car, a big cube engine with a midrange cam (280 degree or thereabouts) and a 2000-2500 stall converter gets the job done very well. Pulls from when the converter hooks to 5500-6000 rpm.
Scoob what you are looking at is a 1st generation Cummins Diesel I have one that is turned up a bit, Not to that level but it is impresssive. Dawg
Yeah, I guess I shouldn't be shocked. A shipper I use sometimes has a Dodge Dually with that motor and that truck seems to think nothing of toting that 10k pound trailer and 4 cars. It's a bad little monkey. I just never head the numbers before. It's pretty damned impressive. I should be getting my new lincoln motor on the dyno here in the next few weeks. Curious to see how it does.
First we have to look at the definition of torque Torque: Waking up with such a hard on it takes two hand to hold it down to pee causing your feet to fly out from under you. I'll take torque! (especially at my age)
'92 Dodge Ram 250 Cummins Turbo Diesel (inline 6, incase ya didn't know) Upgraded Turbo, Injectors, Exhaust, Intake, Modded Injection Pump, Clutch. These "1st Gen" trucks don't have the capability of producing massive power like the "2nd Gen" (12 valve, 1994-1997.5) trucks have, due to the Bosch Rotary Style Injection pump, as opposed to the 94-97 P7100 Inline Pump. I've got friends with 500,600,700hp daily driven diesels. Some of the fastest trucks in the country are just down the street from me. My truck has laid down 321hp/841lbft at the rear wheels. This is on a Dynojet 248C chassis dyno, at 74* temperature, rolling through 5th gear at 46psi Turbo Boost. (pic: 0-35psi gauge buried) BTW: She gets 23mpg empty and 19mpg pulling 10,000lbs
Wow Tex 46psi is a hell of a load. Around town, most of the time, you don't have much chance to open 'er up and use high hp. If you have a lot of tourqe on tap, you can stab the thottle and give your friends a thill.
torque is where it is at. my motorhome has a cat C-12 with 1,680 ft. lbs. !!! (430 hp) it has a 40,000 lb towing capacity. it never even felt pulling my 9,000 lb race trailer. you can stab it at 55 and hit 85 pretty darn quick for a 38,000 lb. rig.
the 394 Olds i'm building for my brother's Hudson is being built for torque. so far it's .060 over bore for a total of 405 cid.the pistons are dished 8.5:1,the cam is stock,as is the rest of the valvetrain.the only real mods are gonna be a 3 x 2 intake and a set of custom headers. the low compression 394 is supposed to make 405 ft.lbs.@ 2400 rpm. the high compression 10.25:1 394 is supposed to make 440 ft lbs.@ 2400 rpm. i can only hope that the better breathing will improve the numbers. i also haven't taken into account the raising of the compression ratio due to the larger piston compresssing into the same size combustion chambers. i also haven't looked into shaving the heads or decking the block,but i know i don't want to go over 9:1 cr on this engine,hopefully it will run on 87 octane-george
I try very hard to have the torqe and horsepower the same at 5250 rpm. So far it's been perfect every time.
I'd have to say torque..I'm a big fan of the big block caddy motor (472,500) they have 500+ lb/ft from the factory.and they're cheap! schrader's makes adapters to put the older scripted valve covers on them aswell.
I seem to have the same luck you do Joe! I built the motor in my Chevy II for HP, because I didn't (don't!) know shit about tuning suspension to get it to hook. I did all of the things the magazines tell you not to do on a street car (big carb, big intake, big heads, big cam [installed straight up], big exhaust) I ended up with 400 hp, 500 lb/ft at the wheels! It would just anihillate the 315/60-15 BFG Drag Radials! (1.75 60' ) I changed to 30-13.50/15 ET streets, and it was better, but they still wouldn't hook out of the hole. I decided to learn about suspension theory. (If you don't have "Doorslammers: The chassis book" by Dave Morgan, you should check it out... full of useful information in a fairly easy to follow format!) Now, if the tires are cold, it still fries 'em... if I heat 'em up, she'll do wheelies... ON THE STREET!
Years ago I had a thousand cc Guzzi and a friend had an R100 BMW. It irritated me that his bike would pull giant wheelies and mine wouldn't. Looked it up one day- the BMWs torque peak was at about 2900 rpm and the Guzzis was 6800. So- that's why the Guzzi would cruise easily at 100 mph on small throttle openings, really responsive at 80 or a hundred mph, the motor had a "sweet spot" at 7 grand where it would really "sing". At that time I was into riding fast, long trips to Milwaukee etc. Megacycle at that time would grind cams for $150 and I thought briefly of having a "torque" cam made up- but I liked the stock Guzzi so I left it alone. Depends on what you want to do with your motor I guess
Texashardcore - first let me say - wow nice work. Second let me ask - is it fast? like what would it do in the quarter mile? I understand it'll pull anything. I am just wondering what'll happens when you don't have a load.
Those Caddy engines rule. I know a guy in North Jersey with a 512 ci Cadillac in an '86 Monte Carlo street driven drag car. Pretty mild build on the motor, worked TH400 behind it and a spool out back. I think his best time was 10.8...not bad for a reasonably mild engine that redlines at like 5200 rpm
Since horsepower is a mathmatical function of torque and rpm, how do you have one without the other? A dyno measures torque, runs it through the formula hp=torquexrpm/5252 and spits out the horsepower numbers. If your torque and hp don't equal each other at 5252, you'd better start asking some questions. A better question might be where dio you want your power range? Larry T- COF
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