Torque question

[thetalonguy]

I got into a nice conversation tonight about the difference between Horsepower and torque. The question was that a smaller engine with a turbo could produce more torque then a straight V6 ot V8. I said that the smaller engine with a turbo would have more torque. The guy i was talking to said that torque doesnt change unless you displacement or change in the length of the combustion chamber. So according to him if you do basic bolt ons your HP will increase but your torque will not. Is this true? I didnt think so

[Nick 92 TSi AWD]

Wow somebody's an idiot, and no it's not you. Yes torque will increase, although you're not going to be making more <relative to hp> than a pushrod V8.

[rcm1061]

Torque is the "twisting" power of the engine, Leverage x Force = Torque (Hence the unit Foot/Pounds). It can be affected in only two ways. 1)Leverage: Mechanical leverage on the crank. The distance from the center of the crank to the center of the rod journals. Basically this is the stroke of the engine. 2)Force: Increase the force on that lever. This can be accomplished any number of ways and this is where we mostly mod our cars. (Not many of us can just throw in stroker cranks.) Increased cylinder presssure (BOOST or NOS) is one way, increase bore so that force is applied across a greater area is another.

It doesn't matter the cofiguration of the engine I6, V8 or I4, it is whichever one has more Leverage x Force.

Rick - '91 GSX

[Genius]

Check out this past thread on the subject...

http://www.dsmtalk.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=2548

[redgsturbo]

A great article on this was in last sunday's paper (only in the south..hehe) Horsepower is how fast something can be done (the lifting weight thing above) whereas torque is the force or resistence to being slowed down. All the bignames interviewed in this article said that torque is a more important value than horsepower. The other thread is full of usefull info, but skip a few articles down so your mind isn't tainted by the wrong information there.

[thetalonguy]

Thanks Genius, your post was helpful to my understanding.