eli5: What is horsepower in an engine

Question

eli5: What is horsepower in an engine

In: 6

Answer 1

Horsepower is the amount of work an engine can do over a set amount of time. One horsepower is 550 foot pounds of torque per second. A foot pound is the ability to apply one pound of force one foot away from the center of the area the work is being applied to.

Older calculations were off, so one horse can actually produce 5-12 horsepower. So it’s not a good reference for “x” amount of horses pulling your car.

In a modern engine, the horsepower is calculated by running the engine, and seeing how much torque it makes then applying a formula to that result. Torque x RPM (of the engine)/5252 = HP

5252 is a constant so any engine that revs to 5,252 rpm with have even torque and HP figures at this engine speed.

EDIT: fixed a typo, point – pound