The difference between horsepower, and torque in a car.
In: Physics
Torque is the amount of force you can putbout in one rotation. Peak torque is usually around where the engine is most efficient but turbocharging makes that a bit more complicated.
Power is basically a measure of torque per second. It’s a direct measure of the engines ability to do work and by far the more important figure. We use a gearbox to convert power to whatever torque we need at the wheels. When people say an engine has good torque what the really mean is it has a broad range of usable power low down the rev range which reduces the need to change gear regularly when towing.
With the right gearbox there’s no reason you couldn’t take the engine from a kawaski ninja motorbike, put it in a truck and use it to pull a trailer. It would require lots of gears, be very noisy and wear out fast due to the high revs needed to get usable power.
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