rx7machine

I know there's a diff. between hp and torque. I was told torque is your basically the power your car has taking off. If you increase hp, does this increase torque too? What are some good ways to increase both hp and torque? I have a mechanic that's installing a act clutch w/ alumminum indigo flywheel. He said since the flywheel was so much lighter than my factory flywheel, that I'll be losing torque...



thanks.

I own a '87 rx7 (n/a)

89 Rag

Torque...from a rotary? you may be searching indefinitly...

1Revvin7

i've asked this question so many times, this is how i see it

1. torque breaks ****; turning power, u know like trucks, low end power

2. hp moves ****; f1 style, high end power



something i don't understand

1. how u can have more torque that hp, since hp is just torque times rpms divided by some #(5522?)

Robbomaz

Generally speaking an increase in torque will produce a hp increase. Your flywheel will not cost you torque, only inertia. You will have less inertia so the motor will stop faster on switch-off, maybe need more revs up for take-off, the motor will be easier to stall due to the rotating mass being less. Upside is faster response to the throttle and a performance improvement as the power not used to spool up the heavy flywheel is being put into the wheels.



In simple terms, torque is what makes a car fun, that fat midrange that breaks tyres loose (& snaps ****). It's obviously a complicated subject but basically target a fat torque curve without compromising the ability to rev and you will make big hp too

When the torque peak is high in the revrange near the power peak, the engine feels wimpy down low, whch is where PP's got their 'no torque at all' rep, in fact if you have 330 hp you have got good torque too.



WRC cars are the primo examples of this. 'Only' 300 hp, yet they have 600Nm of torque. ???? Without the restrictor WRC's would make the same torque but 500 hp at the top

isamu

With super low gearing you can make gobs of torque with available hp. Lets say you swap out the gears in your car for some lower ones. This will increase the amount of torque but not effect the hp numbers of the vehicle. Of course it will take some off your top end. I don't think Rotaries are known for their torque unless you have a 3rotor. I am not sure how much of a difference the flywheel will make, but it can't rob that much out of launching. Just drive it around a bit and see how it does.

Robbomaz

Any reduction in rotating weight is a good thing. The less weight out near the ring gear of the flywheel the better too, which is why serious race gear has small clutch packs with large chunks of air out near the rim

SpecialT

The flywheel will make it alot easier for your motor to "spin" Rev matching is now like an exact science!

Torque is fun!! HP gets you tickets!

dac

Think of Torque as Water Pressure and HP as Water Flow. Can't have one without the other.



Torque is the ability to twist Horsepower is the ability to work.



Lots of Water Pressure will BUST Pipes much as High Torque engines will break things, But you can't get any flow without some water pressure. So it's a balance.

SPOautos

WOW, there are a lot of "interesting" ideas floating around in here lol



Let me take a shot at explaining this a little better.



First lets start with the basics, tq is the turning force that is measured. Its a part of science.



HP, is mearly a figure of math that is computed from your tq and rpms using the formula tq*rpms / 5252, but what its telling you is very useful information.



Because of this there is no way to change one without changing the other. If your tq goes up at a given rpm so will your hp. If it goes down so will your hp.



Here is a good way of explaining why tq and rpm is used to compute hp, it will also explain why tq is much more usefull at high rpms than low rpms.



Remember how tq is turning force? Well, lets say you have 400 lbs of tq at 1000 rpms. This means that every rpms your motor turns its producing 400 lbs of tq. At 1000rpms, your are punding out 400lbs of tq 1000 times in a minute!!!! WOW that sounds like a lot right!!! Well lets use our forumla..... 400*1000/5252= 76.16 rwhp....not much to say the least lol. WHat does this mean? Well if you only need to move a couple feet like to pull a stump its great, if you need to move more than that it sucks. This is why you get slamed in the seat in a truck eventhough its slow as ****.



Now lets look at this, lets take that same 400lbs of tq but move it up to about 6500rpms like a rotary would have it. Based on the forumla for hp 400*6500/5252= 495rwhp!!!!!



Well its easy to see the difference really. In the first example your pounding out 400lbs 1000 times a minute. In the second example your pounding out 400lbs 6500 times a minute!!!!! Which one do you think will do the most work???? See this is what hp is....its taking the tq and combining it with rpms to tell you have much work your engine is capable of.



Tq for one rpm is great but if you want to go more than a foot you better have a bunch more rpms.....or either a HUGE amt of tq.



I know this doesnt really answer your questions about the flywheel. Basically your not going to loose true tq its like Robbomaz, your really just loosing inertia which can be important but that get to deep. Basically if your drag racing you prob want to keep the stock flywheel, if your not you'll prob love the light flywheel.



STEPHEN

rx7machine

How can I find out how much torque my car has? Thanks for all the info.