Is Torque King?

67Dart273 said

That is absolutely correct, and HP is quite simply a mathamatical representation of torque and time, simple, end of story.

If you don't want to believe that, simply look at what the dyno uses to GET those figures............what amounts to a load device, something to measure force, (torque) and a tachometer

Click to expand...

Our high school physics teacher had us measure our own horsepower.

We ran up and down a set of stairs (you have to work against gravity) and he timed how long it took. We then converted the time it took with our weight to calculate our horsepower.

So basically, if you were the same weight, the faster you could run the stairs, the more horsepower that you "put out"...


I guess another way to look at it is:

Torque is how much strength you have (how much weight you can lift).

Horsepower is how fast you can move it.


You can be weaker than someone else, but if you can climb the stairs faster (per pound that you weigh) than the other guy, you have more horsepower. That is the difference between horsepower and torque. Torque is strength, horsepower is how fast you can move the weight.


You need more torque to get a heavier mass moving. Your ability to make it move is horsepower. That is why a heavier car needs more torque to get it moving.