wc_one

Acceleration by definition involves time. a = m/s/s I feel like we're just arguing the obvious here. Maybe this thread should have been titled:

Water -> Wet... not Dry!

KnightRider

[QUOTE]Originally posted by wc_one
[B]

Acceleration by definition involves time.

FYRHWK1

Well, i'll use the ZR-1 as an example, people have swapped in such a gear and for all intensive purposes, they're actually slower then stock geared ZR-1s, overall anyway. The shorter gears do let you accelerate harder, but for shorter time periods, meaning you'll be in 2nd much sooner then the car you're racing, so you'll take him up until you shift to second, then his loner period of time in 1st will let him catch up and pass, you'll probably swap places a few times but with the greater amount of time spent in a higher gear over him he likely will have passed you and kept a solid lead. IMO, you should never change your cars gearing without also changing the redline, though is uppose with 9000 RPMs being input it wont affect it as bad as a ~7500 RPM motor.

I think we've already made it clear that wheel torque is vital to acceleration (which was my original problem with this thread, people saying torque has nothing to do with it) so in essence he's right but like you said, torque is nothing if it isn't moving.

what of the greater torque multiplication? in a 1:1 transmission gear the multiplication of a S2K would be 679 WTQ with the 4.44, 627 with 4.1 ratio. and even in lower RPM ranges the same as before, the car would accelerate faster, not to bring up the old argument all over again.

I'm really lost as to the other argument going on, torque + RPM does move your car, the more gearing you can run the more torque you can shove to the wheels, using enough gearing to make your car redline at your HP peak will produce the most wheel torque because even though torque has dropped, its the highest point of RPM that you can get before torque drops too fast to make up for the extra RPMs available. I hope all this argument isnt over him saying torque instead of wheel torque, semantics arguments get old real quick.

Destiny2002

Destiny2002

Destiny2002

rpace

Wow.... I just read this entire thread, I feel like I've just given birth. As I see it, no one is arguing that Wheel Torque isn't important in accelerating the car, however Wheel Torque is dependant on Engine HP. Therefore HP is the deciding factor in acceleration. If I'm wrong about that please do correct me.

The Unabageler

My opinion, without reading the whole thread, is that you need a healthy combination of both. The piece of information that tells me the most about at engine is the area under the curve, i.e. the total work that the engine can do (work is the integral of the power).

A car with high horsepower is great, but if the torque falls off too quickly then the power you get after peak is wasted. An ideal engine has peak power at close to redline (like ours) which allows the driver to take the most advantage of the power for the most amount of time.

rpace, you are wrong HP is derived from torque. Torque is the deciding factor in acceleration, as that is the measurement of force. Force = mass*acceleration, acceleration=force/mass. When you're in a car that *feels* like it's accelerating fast, what you're feeling is a positive change in the delivered torque. That's what you feel in the s2k when you go into vtec, you feel the rapid change in torque. Constant torque across the rpm range means the engine accelerates at the same rate across the rpm band.

Destiny2002

Destiny2002