Torque to Weight ratio... bonkers?

leaskovski · 10 Oct 2011 at 19:41

So I was talking to a mate on email about cars, and he came up with the quote below. So is it laughable or something to take note of?

To see how fast it'll be in the real world you need to divide torque by weight.

so mine is 400/1720 = 0.232
350z (assuming you get the newer 295bph one) is: 353/1534 = 0.230

but that alone doesnt give the hole picture as the cars get above 0.21 the variation in the figures makes less of a difference. So in theory they should be identical. Even if one of them was 0.25 they would be very close...... but my car is turbo'd so all it's power is low down, from 2000rpm-5000rpm the power is a straight line... all 280bhp. The 350z will need to be rev'd and will lose our lots during gear changes.

I did **** loads of research before buying my car, because i bought my previous one on peak bhp and was always disappointed with how fast it was. This time wrote an app to download all of the parkers database so I could compare the cars on a spreadsheet.... i can;t find it at the mo, otherwise i'd send it.

To put it in perspective, i fluffed a gearchange on my car overtaking a 730d (my car has loads more power), but because of his turbo and torque (and he decided to be a ******) his car ended up pulling back past me.

To be fair though, once you get above 250bhp it all get a bit dangerous to mess about racing other cars of similar power, as you get up to silly speeds way too fast, so I don't do it ever now..... so the differences between a 350z vs saab turbox doesnt really matter.

If you don't use your car much you should get something fast/ practical. I wish you could drive mine before you bought, you'd def end up wanting a car with a turbo.

lolMate?

Begbie · 10 Oct 2011 at 19:46

Had he taking into consideration gear ratios before making this awesome spreadsheet.

Him fluffing a gearchange is not the fault of the car, and purely down to the driver. A Mondeo 2.2TDI has similar torque to a Ferrari so in his mind a Mondeo would beat a Ferrari? You work that one out.

Fusion · 10 Oct 2011 at 19:50

Load of crap.

alexisonfire · 10 Oct 2011 at 19:58

leaskovski said:
So I was talking to a mate on email about cars, and he came up with the quote below. So is it laughable or something to take note of?

lolMate?

So his car...
162bhp per tonne
232ft/lb torque per tonne

350z (his figures i dunno if they are correct)
192bhp per tonne
230ft/lb torque per tonne

Is he saying his (i assume by the figures) diesel is quicker than a 350z? :confused:

danza · 10 Oct 2011 at 20:04

Well that makes just about everything faster than my CTR.

leaskovski · 10 Oct 2011 at 20:18

alexisonfire said:
So his car...
162bhp per tonne
232ft/lb torque per tonne

350z (his figures i dunno if they are correct)
192bhp per tonne
230ft/lb torque per tonne

Is he saying his (i assume by the figures) diesel is quicker than a 350z?

His is a petrol. A saab 93 turbox from what i remember.

I thought it might get a couple of laughs.

Scania · 10 Oct 2011 at 20:36

Beer talk.

Skeeter · 10 Oct 2011 at 21:06

Glad to see I'm not the only one that had random email conversations about cars, LOL.

[TW]Fox · 10 Oct 2011 at 22:08

Totally true. A 306 1.9TD had the same torque and weight as a Civic Type R and was therefore as fast. Honest.

rG-tom · 10 Oct 2011 at 23:04

after a remap my car has more torque than a Nissan GT-R by about 90lb ft.....means it must be well faster

Tute · 10 Oct 2011 at 23:13

Utter crap. My car has twice the torks of a CTR but the Honda would beat me to 60 by a second and a half.

Torque isn't everything. Neither is lots of revs. You need a good balance of both, and then you can start taking weight into consideration.

Scania · 12 Oct 2011 at 10:59

Tute said:
Torque isn't everything.

Oh it is! When pulling 44tons for example....

Not many cars can do that though.

ubersonic · 12 Oct 2011 at 12:00

Im confused now :S I always thought torque/ton was more important than bhp/ton hence why an XJ220 can out drag a Zonda despite having less power and more weight, like that old racing champion said hp sells cars torque wins races :S

DRZ · 12 Oct 2011 at 12:08

ubersonic said:
Im confused now :S I always thought torque/ton was more important than bhp/ton hence why an XJ220 can out drag a Zonda despite having less power and more weight, like that old racing champion said hp sells cars torque wins races :S

Of course, which is why F1 engines rev to 18,000rpm with next to no torque but make 700bhp instead of making 2000ft/lbs of torque and revving to 300rpm like a ship engine...

shoes · 12 Oct 2011 at 12:09

Can an XJ220 out drag a Zonda?

imb4tman · 12 Oct 2011 at 12:13

ubersonic said:
Im confused now :S I always thought torque/ton was more important than bhp/ton hence why an XJ220 can out drag a Zonda despite having less power and more weight, like that old racing champion said hp sells cars torque wins races :S

Tractors have a lot of torque.

Jonnycoupe · 12 Oct 2011 at 12:14

Out drag as in acceleration or top speed.

Top Speed like that is all about the aero drag, aero drag is overcome by power as you need to apply the work at a decent rate and the definition of power is workrate.

Flukester · 12 Oct 2011 at 12:16

hum, without running to wiki bhp is a product of torque and rotational speed.

If designing any vehicle engine you would look first at the weight of the thing, then decide on how the engine delivered it's power at a guess.... for 44tons you would need monster torque and low rpm (extreme rotational force), hence a relative low bhp and inability to compete with current F1 cars.

As you push rpm up even with a slowly reducing torque figure bhp also leaps up, which at another guess would explain how a high reving low torque VTEC engine would destroy a run of the mill torque laden diesel runabout

Just some guess work, maybe I'm right, maybe wrong

....on second thoughts it's too much to think about, but the whole ops mates torque per ton argument is way too funny even if I can't prove him wrong