mmarshall

Yes and no.
Take diesels, for instance...they have huge torque figures at low RPM, with minimal HP ratings. And the all-high-end HP/ no torque figures of Honda and Toyota VTEC fours are exactly the opposite. That's not just arguement for the sake of arguement, but stating a fact.

nthach

Yes, a 10.8L Cummins ISM 280 transit bus engine makes 900ft-lbs of torque at 1200RPM and 280 HP at 2200RPM, where the engine is governed. A Honda F22 used in the S2K makes 240HP and 180-something ft-lbs of torque between 7-9K. The old Mercedes diesels had low HP numbers, I believe the 300D has 90HP but it makes up in torque, which is in the 140-150 range - my friend's old Mercedes 300SD keeps up nicely in Bay Area traffic and comfortably cruises at 70-80.

That's why diesels are so good in trucks - they need the low end grunt to carry cargo.

AzNMpower

I wouldn't mind a diesel in a city car. After all, torque substantially more important in urban driving, where you're likely to stay in the lower rpms. Plus, there's the lower fuel consumption as an added benefit.

Small car + stickshift + diesel is an ideal combo.

JDM

Smaller engines make less torque, end of story.

And blacksc400 is right, "Jap" can make some people very angry. I dont get butt-hurt but some people do.

mmarshall

Are you listening, VW?......Bring back those diesel Jettas, Beetles, and Golfs (now Rabbits).

mmarshall

Not quite end of story. Non-turbo small engines, in general, do make less torque. Turbo small engines, though, can make plenty of torque. The Mitsubishi Evo I reviewed, even with AWD, would outrun a lot of V8's I've driven.

World War II is over.....and so is the Cold War. Forget the term "Jap". Today we are fighting Middle Eastern terrrorists.

AzNMpower

BMW is bringing diesels to the US, slowly but surely. Unfortunately, we're likely not getting the 1-series. However, the X5 3.0d is available for the next model year here in the States.

The problem with big turbos on small engines is the inevitable lag. There's quite a substantial bit of lag on the Evo, although I do like it very much and it is my track car of choice.

CK6Speed

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Sorry mmarshall, this time I have to disagree. Being in Hawaii were many of our parents, grandparents and great grandparents lived though WW2 and the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and being Japanese myself, we still have a lot of living relatives that went through it and were thrown in jail, camps, detained, whatever you call it. It is not as easy to tell your grandpa WW2 is over so get over it. When my wifes grandpa joined the 442 100th battalion as a Japanese American to fight as a US soldier, the first thing they did after he signed the papers was to throw him in the brig. Now, I guess you can say they had to make sure he wasn't a Japanese loyalist, but that is the crap they had to live though and there is no reason for us to just forget about it, or the racial terms used against them.

newr

I would be a very happy camper if my S2K made that much torque.

JDM

I meant generally, but if you put the right turbo on an engine it can make much more power than an engine with twice number of cylinders and displacement of a NA variety. NA for NA, displacement will pretty much call how much torque your going to have, right?



I know, people have to get over the race issue but some people wont drop it but also understand what CK6Speed said. My older relatives parents fought in WWII on the Japanese side and the topic is very sensative to them and I have to respect that. Anyways back to engines!

kit cat

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i really prefer you not use that term...its like the "N word" for us Japanese.

LexLaw

Well said!! Let's all respect one another here @ CL. There is enough of that going on outside in the rest of the world. I'd like to think that we can just escape all of that here. It's 2007, time to let all of that ignorance go.

lobuxracer

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This underscores my point. Where you make torque is most important to getting the job done. Do you want 1/4 mile quick? Put short gears in the thing so it gets up to top speed quickly. Do you want top speed? Put tall gears in the thing so it can (eventually) accelerate to a high number.

The driver of the drag car will feel the torque (but not the engine torque, the torque at the wheel) and get pushed back in the seat. The driver of the top speed car will not feel the torque, will not get pushed back in the seat, but will (exactly as you said) pass the drag car bouncing off the rev limiter while continuing to accelerate to a much higher top speed.

On the street, we build engines for broad torque because they are easier to drive away from a stoplight than engines making torque across a narrow range of rpm. In racing, we build engines that make best torque across the rpm range we expect to see at the track. We don't care if it idles nicely or even pulls away easily as long as we have a strong clutch and a smart driver who knows how to use the power correctly.

Smaller engines are more like racing engines. They make best torque at higher rpm. Larger engines (particularly diesels) make best torque at lower rpm. Diesels are typically oversquare engines so they are very limited in their rpm range. Why do you think they put 10 speed gearboxes in diesel trucks? Narrow range of available torque dictates (again exactly as you said) more gears to convert the power to something the vehicle can use. This also holds true for the smaller engines. Isn't it funny how the cars we knew and loved in the 60's had three and four speed transmissions, and now everything seems to have a minimum of five. Six is becoming more common, and Lexus have an eight speed in a street vehicle.

So all these discussions about torque vs. horsepower are pretty meaningless. The engine making more horsepower can do more work. Moving a vehicle is doing work. End of story. There is no single measure that describes an engine's potential better than horsepower. By the same token, peak horsepower is just as meaningless as peak torque. In all cases, we are going to put a gearbox on the engine to convert the power to a torque we can use at the wheel. The difference to the driver is how fast to I have to spin the engine to get the power I want, and how much abuse does the clutch need to survive to put the power to the drivetrain.

American drivers have been told for years the best engine makes a lot of torque at low rpm. So they don't want to rev the engine hard and slip the clutch to launch the car. Europeans and Japanese have been using smaller engines for many years, and expect to rev the engine to get power out of it because the smaller engines have much better fuel economy at cruising speeds, and fuel in both places is far more expensive than it is here.

So we get into all these discussions (sometimes rather heated discussions) about torque vs. horsepower, when really that's not what the problem is. I will say this - anyone comparing torque in one car to torque in another without accounting for gearing is making a pointless comparison. Comparing peak torque is equally pointless. What really matters is, how broad is the torque, and how well does it complement the rest of the drivetrain for the intended purpose? If we get that right, all these torque and horsepower discussions fall by the wayside.

mmarshall

I understand your point, and agree with much of it, but there is a reason for that. Small engines, on the average, do get better gas mileage than larger ones as long as they are not under load, but Americans generally prefer larger engines with more torque because you don't HAVE to rev and slip the clutch. Slipping the clutch creates heat and places undue wear on the linings and pressure plate....and it doesn't do the throwout bearing any good either. A smaller engine with less torque also means more downshifting on uphill grades and under engine loads. So, with a smaller engine, if you tend to launch your car aggressively, (as many do ) what you save in gas costs while cruising (or more) will likely be spent on clutch jobs at more-frequent-than-necessary intervals. And a clutch job on a cheap entry-level Chevy or Dodge is one thing.....go price one at a BMW or Porsche shop.

Och

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