Power calculator!

Hmm, according to the calculator, if you can give a 156 V6 an extra 30BHP and take her up to a total of 220BHP you'll clock a 6.7 0-60 time. Not bad really.

Originally Posted by Trailbraker

Its figures aren't too far off at all for any cars I have owned or been interested in.

BHP/tonne is the main thing allright..

(the diesel owners might be disappointed to note that torque is essentially irrelevent )

Isn't it actually the "total area under the torque curve"/tonne that is most important?

Originally Posted by Caldo Bollente

Humans are torque monsters though, your average produces around 120 lbft, a tuned one maybe 160, just not high revers stops them having more power, that and they're around half the size of a horse.

Dyno Graphs

Thanks for the link, very interesting reading

Originally Posted by Darren156

Hmm, according to the calculator, if you can give a 156 V6 an extra 30BHP and take her up to a total of 220BHP you'll clock a 6.7 0-60 time. Not bad really.

Doesn't take into account the gearing advantage on a 2.5 though. Red-line is at 60 or thereabouts. I've clocked 6 seconds dead in my 3.0 and there's definitely more in it as I couldn't give it full throttle in first. If you could improve the traction I reckon you'd break the 6 second barrier..

Originally Posted by Pud237

Isn't it actually the "total area under the torque curve"/tonne that is most important?

No

..unless you multiply torque by a constant times the rpm.

..which equals power

What matters in the total area under the power curve (time the other dimension) for the rev ranges from redline down to the start point for the next gear.

Basically all that matters is the rate of work that the engine can do..

If you can imagine an engine hooked up to a water pump and pumping water into a big tank..
A 2.4 diesel engine might be able to push out some big gobs of water 4 thousand times a second, a lower torque petrol engine would probably push out smaller amounts of water 7 or 8 thousand times a second but once it pushes out more water over the same time interval its a faster engine.
..and probably in a lighter, better-balanced car to boot

Conceptually It would be the total amount of water pumped that determines how fast the engine would accelerate you over a given time interval.

This is purely determined by power.

Torque Figures are completly irrelevent if you dont consider how many times a second it can be transmitted (i.e. power).

A tractor can have several thousand Nm of torque , but it cant rev very high so has measly power
Then you would worry about the weight, aerodymanics etc to get power/weight etc.

Sure though torque matters for wrong gear acceleration, okay, okay flexability if you must

Originally Posted by Darren156

Hmm, according to the calculator, if you can give a 156 V6 an extra 30BHP and take her up to a total of 220BHP you'll clock a 6.7 0-60 time. Not bad really.

Yeah but it gets the correct 0-60 wrong, it should be 7.1 for a stock 2.5 they give about 7.3 or 4 from memory

I think an interesting thing would be to see how the reduction of weight would affect the figures, its easier tio remove extra weight,, for say a track day car, than to boost the power output, which is where beefing up a 2.0 twinny comes in..
If due to mods or remaps etc a twinny, a 2.4 diesel and a V6 had a race the twinny, being lighter would win, the V6 second and the diesel last, all else being =

If you mod a car and can see feel or measure any improvement, then it must be quite an increase in BHP - My exhaust makes about 1 mph difference on my 1/2 mile sprint, doesn't seem a lot, but a 117bhp picasso is only 14mph slower than my 2.5 (pre new exhaust) and my mate with a 900 cc kawasaki is now only 30mph faster than my 156, and he has a huge power to weight advantage, but he does have traction problems, and keeping the front wheel down

0-60 in 7.95 seconds since my re-map and CDA

Originally Posted by Darren156

Hmm, according to the calculator, if you can give a 156 V6 an extra 30BHP and take her up to a total of 220BHP you'll clock a 6.7 0-60 time. Not bad really.

Effectively what a GTV V6 is ...the 3.0 V6 produces 220 bhp and according to Evo a 0-60 in 6.5 secs

PS: Thanks to poster and respondees, I was trying to remember letstorquebhp website for a while!