Average Horse Power

[Andrew Wakeling]

Hiya all,

Right, NOW I know why people didn't want to go here... but anyhow, the
point I was trying to make, in my ORIGINAL message... before all this
stuff was...

Well, firstly, I DID forget to mention torque, and YES, it does play a
significant role in engine performance etc.
Just for books:

Torque = Force x Displacment

OR

Torque = Force x Distance

Now, my original proposition, was that... NEITHER maximum Torque nor
maximum Horsepower matter towards the final quarter of a mile time.
Here's why...

Ok, back to the dynometer graphs. If you take a look at a couple of
graphs from many vehicles from dynos and stuff, you find that it DOES
take time to reach the maximum horsepower, and it also must reach it via
a certain pathway. Now, this is the key factor... If the graph tends to
rise quickly and then reach the maximum horsepower, you'll find the car
will perform quite well. If the graph does not a rise for a while, and
then reach maximum horsepower, the car will not perform as well as the
previous car.

The final result, is we are dealing with the AREA of the graphs. If a
dyno run has a greater area, it will tend to have a greater AVERAGE of
horsepower, than a car with a similar horsepower range with a graph with
a smaller area. Of course mass also plays a significant role, and
basically your final result is:

Constant = Average Horsepower / Mass

This constant, I reckon, should be the type of constant we should use,
instead of "my car produces 500 hp" etc. The dyno runs are fun and all,
but seriously, people are learning that they can design cars to produce
bigger MAX horsepower by transferring the torque range to a higher rev
range, or by other methods such as turbocharging or supercharging, BUT
all this added horsepower doesn't relate back to GETTING to that point,
or in other words, the AVERAGE performance of a car... which I believe
is what we're ALL looking for. I guess that the constant above is really
just the quarter a mile times, but without all that slipping and human
error. This also assumes that the dyno run was accurate and stuff.

Anyway, enough of the babble, and back to the garage... just remember,
AVERAGE is better than MAX...

Andrew Wakeling