What is car engine torque
Reading the characteristics of the engine of a particular model, we meet such concepts:
- power - horsepower;
- maximum torque - Newton / meters;
- revolutions per minute.
People, seeing the value of 100 or 200 horsepower, believe that this is very good. And they are right - 200 horsepower for a powerful crossover or 100 horsepower. for a compact urban hatchback is really good performance. But you also need to pay attention to the maximum torque and engine speed, since such power is reached at the peak of the engine.
In simple terms, the maximum power of 100 hp. your engine may develop at certain engine speeds. If you drive around the city, and the tachometer needle shows 2000-2500 rpm, while the maximum is 4-5-6 thousand, then at the moment only a part of this power is used - 50 or 60 horsepower. Accordingly, the speed will be small.
If you need to switch to a faster mode of movement - you have entered the highway or want to overtake a truck - you need to increase the number of revolutions, thereby increasing the speed.
The moment of force, aka torque, just determines how quickly your car can accelerate and give out maximum power.
Another example is you are driving down the highway at high speed in 4-5 gear. If the road begins to climb uphill and the slope is quite noticeable, then the engine power may simply not be enough. Therefore, you have to switch to lower gears, while squeezing more power from the engine. Torque in this case serves to increase power and helps to activate all the forces of your engine to overcome obstacles.
Gasoline engines produce the highest torque - at 3500-6000 rpm, depending on the brand of car. In diesel engines, the maximum torque is observed at 3-4 thousand revolutions. Accordingly, diesel cars have better acceleration dynamics, it is easier for them to quickly accelerate and squeeze all the “horses” out of the engine.
However, in terms of maximum power, they lose to their gasoline counterparts, since at 6000 rpm the power of a gasoline car can reach several hundred horsepower. It is not for nothing that all the fastest and most powerful cars that we wrote about earlier on Vodi.su run exclusively on high-octane A-110 gasoline.
Well, to make it completely clear what torque is, you need to look at the units of its measurement: Newtons per meters. In simple terms, this is the force with which power is transferred from the piston through the connecting rods and the crankshaft to the flywheel. And already from the flywheel this force is transferred to the transmission - gearbox and from it to the wheels. The faster the piston moves, the faster the flywheel rotates.
From this we come to the conclusion that the power of the engine produces torque. There is a technique in which maximum thrust is generated at low speeds - 1500-2000 rpm. Indeed, in tractors, dump trucks or SUVs, we primarily appreciate power - the driver of a jeep has no time to spin the crankshaft up to 6 thousand revolutions in order to get out of the pit. The same can be said about a tractor that pulls a heavy disc harrow or a three-furrow plow - it needs maximum power at low speeds.
What does torque depend on?
It is clear that the most powerful motors have the largest volume. If you have some kind of small car like Daewoo Nexia 1.5L or a compact hatchback Hyundai i10 1.1L, then it is unlikely that you will be able to accelerate sharply or start from a standstill with a slip, although the ability to shift gears correctly and use all the power of the engine does its job.
Accordingly, on small cars we use only part of the engine's potential, while on more powerful cars with good performance and elasticity of the engine - shift ranges - you can accelerate almost from a standstill without changing gears so quickly.
The elasticity of the engine is an important parameter, indicating that the ratio of power and the number of revolutions is optimal. You can drive in low gears at a fairly high speed, while squeezing the maximum from the engine. This is a very good quality for both urban driving, where you need to constantly brake, accelerate and stop again, and for the track - with one touch of the pedal, you can accelerate the engine to high speeds.
Torque is one of the most important engine parameters.
Thus, we come to the conclusion that all engine parameters are closely related: power, torque, the number of revolutions per minute at which maximum torque is achieved.
Torque is the force that helps to fully utilize the full power of the engine. Well, the greater the power of the motor, the greater the torque. If it is also achieved at low speeds, then on such a machine it will be easy to accelerate from a standstill, or climb any hill without switching to lower gears.
In this video, we perfectly dismantled what torque and horsepower are.
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