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Small error
Posted by Eric Law [Email] (more from Eric Law) on Thu, 3 Oct 2002 09:02:16
In Reply to: top speed limitiations on a wussy engine, nt moore, Thu, 3 Oct 2002 00:22:39
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NT,
You made one small error in your calculation! Ignoring for a moment things like hills, the ability of the engine to accelerate the car against air resistance at any given speed depends not on the engine's power at it's max RPM (or at any other RPM you may see quoted like the peak torque RPM), but it's power *at the speed it's turning when the vehicle is going at the speed in question*.
For example: you're sitting in some hypothetical car that requires an engine output of 125 horsepower in order to accelerate when traveling at 120 MPH. The power of the engine may seem ample as it's rated at, say, 150 HP at 5800 RPM. But if the gear you've selected only allows the engine to turn at 4000 RPM, and the engine only makes 120 HP at 4000 RPM, you won't be able to go any faster. Obviously in this particular case, downshifting could help, *if* there's an appropriate gear available.
I'm sure you've probably seen people arguing endlessly on this BBS about which affects acceleration more: "torque" or "horsepower". The reality of it is that it's just not that simple. The real answer is that it correlates to the integral of the engine's output over the entire acceleration run - which usually includes multiple trips through different RPM ranges as gears are changed.
Eric Law
posted by 63.173.23...
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