hyundairacer58

Let say you have 2 cars with identical suspension, set up, drivers, weight, and both cars are geared so that they hit the same top speed at their rev limit in each gear. The only difference is in the power curve.



Car 1 uses big piston and displacement to make its power, and can’t reliably rev past 6,300 RPM





Car 2 uses small light weight pistons, and makes its power using high PRMs.





Both cars are 5-speeds which means if they shift at rev limit the RPM will drop about 0.70*(rev limit). This gives us our power band. We can then calculate the average power at the wheels during a full throttle shift at rev limit run. Turns out they both have the same average HP in their power bands, 146hp.



Will Car 1 with its higher torque accelerate faster during this run?

Will Car 1 accelerate faster not because of its torque but because it has a higher peak HP?

Maybe Car 2 will accelerate faster?

Stocker

This is silly. If you're making up cars, it comes down to the gearing how fast they will accelerate.

hyundairacer58

This is a tech discussion I had with a couple of engineers at work. One of them autocrosses and these are his numbers. So Im asking here to see what you guys thought. Im thinking car 2 will actually accelerate quicker but they seem to think differently.

187sks

The gears would be so much shorter on car 2, but the torque on car 1 is vastly higher, so I actually think it would be a wash.



HP is calculating the amount of work being done, Torque the amount of rotational force being exerted.



To make this apply to more practical situations, compare the same 2 cars but running the same gearing. Car 1 would destroy car 2. It wouldn't even be close.

Stocker

Unless the gearing were optimized to favor car 2. That's why this is pointless.