Good article on towing

[Expidia]

Todays NY Post (6-16-10) on towing a boat. It's all about torque.

 

[maharg]

Re: Good article on towing

No link?

 

[Expidia]

Re: Good article on towing

I was reading it in the paper version during lunch. Try nypost.com and use their search engine.

 

[superbenk]

Re: Good article on towing

I must be dense, I couldn't find it on their site. A link would have been much more useful.

 

[Expidia]

Re: Good article on towing

Ya, since I was reading it in the paper my post was geared more to readers of the NY Post . . .

But here is an article that discusses the same thing as I was reading today in that when choosing a tow vehicle, that torque is more important than HP for towing a boat and it's more in depth than the NY Post article was:

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/auto-...city/information/horsepower-versus-torque.htm

Enjoy!

 

[45Auto]

Re: Good article on towing

Very confusing article there. Looks like the writer strung a bunch of stuff together but never understood the basic concepts he was trying to discuss. He doesn't know the difference between torque and horsepower. He actually claims that torque is what accelerates you at low speeds and horsepower is what accelerates you at high speeds:

Horsepower provides highway passing power when your engine is revving hard, allowing you to accelerate at high speeds, while torque gives you low-end power and the ability to move quickly after stopping.

I wonder at what magic speed this transformation from torque acceleration to HP acceleration takes place?

He then goes into an incorrect definition of horsepower, and gets worse from there.

Let's lay down the basics. Horsepower is a measurement of work, meaning a force applied to an object and the displacement of that object in the direction of the applied force.

Power is NOT a measurement of work, it's a measurement of the RATE that work is being performed at. Trying to explain the effects of torque and horsepower without understanding this basic concept is like trying to explain calculus without understanding addition and multiplication. No wonder he's all over the place.

 

[Alpheus]

Re: Good article on towing

The writers interpretation was not that bad. If you have 500 HORSEPOWER under the hood and your stuck in 5th gear what good does it do you without the TORQUE that 1st gear gives you to get it moving, and vise versa. I dont know of a magic speed at which SPEED at which torque and horsepower cross but I do know the RPM they cross is 5,252 every time...

 

[45Auto]

Re: Good article on towing

If you have 500 HORSEPOWER under the hood and your stuck in 5th gear what good does it do you without the TORQUE that 1st gear gives you to get it moving, and vise versa. I dont know of a magic speed at which SPEED at which torque and horsepower cross but I do know the RPM they cross is 5,252 every time...

Told you it was confusing. The only thing that has anything to do with where torque and horsepower cross is the scale of the graph. Only time they cross at 5252 is if you use the same size grid for torque and horsepower.

You really think General Motors doesn't know what they're doing because their dyno chart for a 5.7L crosses at 2626? Hint, hint, look at the units on the sides of the chart. From

http://www.gm.com/experience/techno...specialized/marine/REV_F_2011_5700_Marine.pdf

How about this Mack MP10 dyno chart, where they never cross?

http://www.macktrucks.com/default.aspx?pageid=2325

Think Mack doesn't know what they're doing either? Again, it doesn't mean anything, it's all in the scales you choose for torque and HP.

Sounds like you almost grasped the basic concept, you can always turn horsepower into torque, it just takes gears. Given 2 engines where one has more torque but the other one has more power, the one with more POWER can always be geared to produce more TORQUE at the same RPM.

 

[jfadool]

Re: Good article on towing

HP is a function of torque and RPM. Notice how diesel engines(low rpms) have low HP ratings but high torque. And high revving motorcycle engines have low torque but really high HP.

If you have high power and want high torque all you need is gearing, if you have high torque but want high power, gearing again is the answer.

I can generate more torque with a breaker bar than most engines can. Just think about that.

 

[45Auto]

Re: Good article on towing

I can generate more torque with a breaker bar than most engines can. Just think about that.

The ancient Greeks actually had that all figured out a long time ago. Archimedes figured it out somewhere around 250 B.C, when he said "Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand and I will move the world".

Give you a long enough breaker bar, and you can generate more torque than ANY engine can!

Now POWER is a totally different story, because that is the RATE of doing work.

 

[jfadool]

Re: Good article on towing

Now POWER is a totally different story, because that is the RATE of doing work.

Yep exactly, if I could generate that much power (torque at speed) you would see a 13ft Boston Whaler behind a 10 speed bike