8th Generation Honda Civic Forum - View Single Post - Everything You Wanted To Know About Car Measurements(HP, TQ, Gear Ratios etc.)
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Old 07-31-2007, 11:17 PM   #10 (permalink)
e60.deluxe
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good post, just one thing id like to elaborate on.

Quote:
Horsepower- A rate at which torque is produced.
Example-An engine that produces 300 pound-feet of torque at 4,000 rpm produces 228 horsepower at 4,000 rpm. This is based on the formula that horsepower is equal to torque multiplied by engine speed and that sum divided by 5,252. The constant, 5,252, is used to convert the rpm for torque and horsepower into rpm's.
Torque is Work in a rotation, so if HP is the rate of Torque its also the rate of work, ie its not different than power.

it has been defined that a horse can do 33,000 ft-lbs of work in 1 minute. (this doesnt come from anywhere, just somebody a long time said they think this is what a horse can do) since the Torque is a rotational force, to get the distance multiplier we need to factor out 2pi (since 2 x pi x r = the distance around a circle) so 33000/(2x3.1415) = 5252 and thats where 5252 comes from in case anyone was wondering.

Last edited by e60.deluxe; 07-31-2007 at 11:24 PM.
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