So I am aware of the existence of high specific output engines like in the Honda S2000 or Ferraris, but one common criticism those cars tend to have is their lack of torque. Why does it seem so difficult for these engines to make more torque as well?
In: Engineering
Have you ever unscrewed a screw?
When you first have to un-tighten the screw out of the wood, have you ever noticed how hard it is to do that by the metal shaft of the screwdriver? It’s so much easier to unscrew by the handle. But once it’s loose, you may have noticed that it just takes forever to *keep* using the handle, so you use the metal shaft instead, and then it turns like lightning.
That’s what’s going on in cars. Small engines are like the metal shaft of the screwdriver. They’re crazy fast, but only for stuff that isn’t very demanding. Bigger engines are more like the handle. They’re great if you need some real work done, but they take forever to get anything done if there isn’t much work for them to do.
The reason ultimately boils down to the fact that, perhaps unintuitively, when you push on something, it actually *pushes back*. When a car’s gear tries to twist the axel, the axel tries to twist back. It doesn’t wanna be twisted. So it starts a little war between the gear and the axel, where both of them are trying their hardest to twist back against the forces causing them to fight each other.
Each of them brings their own set of allies to the fight. The gear is bringing the engine and the explosions in its pistons. The axel is bringing the weight of your car and the friction of the road beneath the wheels. If the gear and its allies are stronger, the gear wins out, and the car is forced to move.
But suppose the axel wins because the car is just too heavy, so the gear’s allies come to a stalemate. How should the gear proceed in order to get moving again?
Well, bringing more firepower to the fight usually helps. One way is to bring a bigger, badder gear. That can tip the scales in the gear’s favor and allow things to move again.
But large armies take a lot of time to move and coordinate. If your army is very wide, then the troops at the edge of your army will need to march a lot farther in order to turn around than the troops in the middle. If you want to have the ability to turn around quickly, you need a smaller army.
So if the axel isn’t putting up much of a fight and you just want to steamroll its allies and get the war over with, you’d be better served with a smaller, more nimble gear.
Hope that helps.
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