Originally Posted by fonzy_S2K,Jan 29 2007, 05:40 PM

don't worry about the TQ argument in the S, our gearing is well designed to move the car below the vtec. plus contrary to popular belief, we have a good amount of TQ.

Originally Posted by look 171,Jan 29 2007, 06:26 PM

I don't think I want to drive at 5000rpm in traffic.

Originally Posted by RED MX5,Jan 29 2007, 07:03 PM

Torque, taken by itself, is just a number. It tells us nothing in isolation, so what is the basis of your concern? Thrust is what produces acceleration, and thrust is a function of torque times overall gearing. In first gear, the peak thrust of the S2000 is in excess of 2,000 lbs. (thrust is measured in pounds rather than ft./pounds, because it is a linear force), which is only a few hundred pounds less than the peak thrust produced by a Viper.

Originally Posted by RED MX5,Jan 30 2007, 04:54 PM

Actually, the S does have enough thrust to boil the tires. If you drop the clutch at 6-7k at WOT the engine will go right to redline as the tires spin wildly. What makes a Viper so different is that the massive torque is generated over a wide range of revs rather than a narrow range as is the case with the S2000.

Thrust is the force that produces linear acceleration. Some engines produce thrust directly (rockets, jets, etc.). Internal combustion engines produce a rotating force which has to be converted to a linear force in order to produce linear acceleration. The conversion from a rotating force (torque) to a linear force (thrust) takes place at the tires contact patch. The force is equal to the engines torque, times the overall gearing, less any driveline losses. (Note that, unlike torque and thrust, power is not affected by gearing.)

A simplified example might help. If you want achieve 0.5 g's of acceleration with a 3,000 lb. vehicle, you need to produce 1500 lbs. of thrust (and you must do so without tire spin ). How hard do you have to "twist the axles" to produce 1500 lbs. of forward thrust at the contact patches? Well, if the radius of the tire is 1 foot then one foot pound of twist at the axle will produce 1 pound of thrust at the contact patch, so to keep this simple we'll assume that our tires have a diameter of 24". Now we need 1500 ft. lbs. of torque at the axles, so how much torque does the engine have to produce? That depends on the gearing. If the engine makes 500 ft. lbs. we can get to 1500 ft. lbs. with 3:1 gearing. If the engine makes 100 ft. lbs. we will need 15:1 gearing. If the 100 ft. lb. motor produces it's torque over a rev range that is five times that of the 500 ft. lb. engine they'll both produce the same acceleration for the same period of time, even though they produce vastly different amounts of torque. (This is why horsepower takes revs into account.)

In competent hands stock S2000's routinely run high 13's, and any car that runs sub-14-second times has more than enough acceleration to keep up with (and blow away) most traffic. However, the performance is only delivered over a relatively narrow RPM range, so to extract the potential the engine has to be kept in the fat part of the powerband. Our cars will spiin the tires all the way through first, then land at the base of the powerband when we shift to second. When we work the gearbox the cars deliver far more performance than can be used on the street. The fact that the torque numbers don't impress people who don't understand how they relate to performance doesn't diminish the performance one bit, so one should't worry about it. Both the engine torque and the performance are what they are. One is low, the other substantially higher than the average street car. If it's not enough then SC/AC and gears do a nice job of taking the performance up a notch.

Here's the rub. Off the line we're either WAY below the powerband, or we're spinning the tires (to get in and stay in the powerband). The alternative is to be slipping the clutch, which gives a quicker launch but puts the stock clutch at risk. Neither wild tire spin nor the screaming motor is a desirable thing on the street (attracts too much attention), so we end up letting the clutch out normally and letting the car accelerate against the mass until we reach the powerband. By then cars with a fatter torque curve are apt to be well ahead of us. On a track or autocross course it's a totally different situation, and our cars are rarely if ever outside the fat part of the powerband.

IOW, these cars have great performance (especially for a 2l NA I-4), but one has to work the gearbox to extract it. For many owners that's a big part of what makes these cars so special. If the performance came easy it would be a totally different car (and many of us wouldn't own them).