How do you drive a manual transmission automobile?

How on earth are you 'feeling' such specific information through a device which has absolutely no way of communicating it to you?

 

I think you're mistaken there, torque as measured in lb-ft or Nm is exactly the definition of torque per physics. Torque is the force the engine is making divorced from the movement of the engine. Of course the engine is moving, so the HP is the number we use to quantify the actual work that the engine can do.

Torque creates horse power as a result of the movement it creates, so (torque * rpm) /5250 = hp, which is why HP and torque curves ALWAYS cross at 5250rpm.

Make no mistake HP is what moves the car.
Torque is what pulls stumps.

 

Yeah, asked myself the same question. Must be some "seeing is believing" thingy. There's no feedback whatsoever to the sticks. And that rumble effect some pads do, is quit canned. No useful info about car behaviour at all time. Practically impossible to do. So he gets a visual input, projecting it to the input device. No offence.

 

well, this has to do with your brain. I hope I make sense, but you can set sight over to feel, even if you don't even feel it.

 

Well, I've first experienced/realized it was so precise while running the long straight on the LeMans track. I felt the left wheels drifting off of the main track onto the slightly less smooth portion of the road. Only the left side of the pad shuddered. I made a tiny nudge change to the stick, and it began returning to the correct, smooth track. Further experimentation on other tracks led to realizing the pad was providing FFB at & relative to the four corners of the vehicle.

Note, - this was only in AC. Other current automotive games like GRID, - not at all. No precise feeling of the road/car tires, drift etc. while AC provided this. Particularly after the last patch where FFB had to be turned down just a bit.

 

It's providing some canned rumble effect.
Now imagine some magical device which translates that mysterious force through a consistent, particular force. Yes, you get it.

 

I am not mistaken but I`ll give you that my explanation was a bit clumsy.

Horsepower determines how fast a vehicle can travel, torque at the wheels determines how quickly that speed can be reached. The greater the torque figure, the faster the acceleration.

Do you agree on that? And what is more important on race track?

btw we are hijacking thread ... we should stop or open new one.

 

Sorry, but I can't think of any explanation for this other than your imagination. What you're claiming simply isn't possible.

 

I do not agree, it's all HP that moves the car.

Now if you look at a Dynochart, you can talk about the area under the curve, and how usable the HP is.

Torque is a static force, HP is work, accelerating a car is work.
Torque * rpm creates HP which does the work, so of course torque implies HP.

All acceleration and speed is derived from the cars HP numbers. But not just peak HP, but HP across the RPM range (which of course just a different way of expressing torque at a specific RPM).

 

Wrong!
Torque can be static force but not in this case and that`s why I called it work in my first post.
Power is not work! Power is an expression of the rate or speed at which work is performed.

Power is calculated and dependent on torque and rpm!
So, what moves car?

 

Torque is only a static force, that's what torque is!

You are right about power and work. But torque is what torque is.

I think the part that is confusing to you is the way in which an internal combustion engine makes power is from the rotational torque applied by the reciprocating assembly. You can't have power without torque, but you can have torque without power. Of course all engines make both. But HP is what actually accelerates the car at any RPM. Having more torque down low means you have more HP down low. Having more HP up top means you have more relative torque up top. The two numbers are inextricably linked by RPM in an internal combustion engine. Torque is only as valuable as the RPM it's made at. Peak HP is only valuable if you're actually making it. An old F1 engine with all it's power is only make by revving it to 20K rpms, it makes embarrassing little torque and out accelerates everything. A nascar V8 in the same chassis, with all it's torque would not out perform the F1 motor because it would be several hundred hp short.

 

Who is confused here if you talk about torque as static force in running engine?

... and about f1 engine that you mentioned ... put it in nascar chassis against proper big V8 lump and run them at Watkins Glen with same gearbox ... OK I`ll give you to change ratios in gearbox and diff ... who will win?

Point is that I see HP as indicator as it is not measurable value, it is calculated and dependent. I think that torque (work) is more important and seems that you think that rpm is more important - dead end.

 

Torque is a measure of a static force, that force can be being applied to a moving object, but the force itself does not imply motion.

With open gear ratios hands down F1 car. You can generate torque with better gears. Give me a long enough lever and I can lift the world. No substitution for power though.

No it's not all about RPM, otherwise the integra would've ruled the world. It's about area under the curve, having the most HP on tap at anytime. A broad useable powerband is what you want. But it's more important to have torque up high than it is to have torque down low. Torque down low doesn't create useable HP (it does make street cars more driveable though). If you think I think torque isn't important you're not understanding me correctly. HP is the most important thing and HP = (torque *rpm)/5250. I think torque is exactly that important in relation to rpms.

 

Torque is ONLY responsible for acceleration. Looking at the formula: M=alpha*t (rotaional accleration * time)

Power is responsible for acceleration AND speed. Because you can build Power out of P=M*n (Torque * RPM)

So a car with high power must not have good acceleration. Because with high RPMs you can also create high Power.
But a car with high torque does always have good acceleration (with the same mass)...accleration of heavy cars is worse than light cars, of course.

BOT: it´s difficult to find a rule for the perfect shift point. on a straight road it´s best to shift a little bit after the max torque
(take a look at the toqrue-curve) e.g. with a diesel-engine you may shift ealier, because the climax is on lower rpm.
on the exit of a turn it isn´t always good to have max torque, because the rsik of spin off is higher. so exiting with a higher gear is sometimes much safer.
On downshift it´s important not to reach the rev-limiter in the lower gear, otherwise the engine gets damaged. Also it´s important that the speed gap of the gears
isn´t that big, because otherwise the wheels block and the car gets unstable. So kick the gas when downshifting (double-clutch) is always a good solution. Even if
some modern cars do this automatically.

 

Haha it seems so absurd that some people can argue for so long while being so obviously mistaken on such basic concepts. I give up trying to convince anybody, sotti did a far better job.

Paul_NLC: from a purely theoretical engine physics stand point, if you want to accelerate as fast as possible, you have to shift up after using as much power as possible. "Riding the torque" only is meaningless, you want as much power as possible. Usually it implies shifting down a gear if you're not close to the rev limiter because on the vast majority of engines, the "red line" is right after peak power, so being close to the red line with the gas fully pressed is what rips the most power out of the engine.

Of course you have to take into account the shape of the road, the grip, the differential settings, etc. to decide which gear to use when going out of a corner. But if you only want your engine to make you go fast, the more time you spend with the needle close to the red line, the better.

 

Great post, some terminology correction, this is called blipping the throttle (heel-toe technique), double-clutch was only needed for synchromesh less trannies.

 

We already contaminated this thread ... my answer is on private message

 

Ooooooh, one hijacker's gone. Poor Kitty...

 

yeah you´re right! the translator gave me the wrong word :-D

 

Naah, still there. If they decide to open new thread we can go on with egg/chicken dilemma.