Redline, rear-wheel, and torque
06-25-2008, 08:44 AM
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Originally Posted by Conway,Jun 24 2008, 07:45 PM
1. One thing that makes this car special is its 8000 rpm redline. Why is that a great thing?
06-25-2008, 11:05 AM
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Originally Posted by qbmurderer13,Jun 24 2008, 10:10 PM
Like I mentioned earlier the engine doesnt have much torque (161). Although the higher you rev a car, the higher the multiplication of torque, so when you get to about 6000 there is plenty of torque there. The good thing about this car is that below 6000rpm it feels like any other car, with exceptional gas mileage and still decent acceleration. Once you hit 6000rpm the car just transforms into a beast as you hear the engine scream and push you back in your seat. Think about, this car could keep up with cars that have almost TWICE as much torque. And its pretty much all due to the high redline, and low weight.
torque is TWISTING force. quoted torque figure is instaneous torque created by the MOTOR (twisting at the flywheel). this twist is passed through the gearing and ultimately to axles where it spins the wheel. the gears in the transmission provides for "multiplication" by basic mechanical leverage.
because the physical gear sizes (and ratios) are fixed, "multiplication" effect is constant for each gear.
the downside of having high mechanical leverage / ratio is the engine will spin very fast to rotate the wheel very fast... so you need lots of rev "headroom", so to speak... or else your car will "top out" at 10mph in 1st gear.
naturally smaller engines can spin faster easier because of lower mass of pistons, etc. it also NEEDS to spin faster to OFFSET high gearing ratio ("short gearing") necesitated by the fact that smaller engines naturally produce less torque.... these things go hand in hand. when building a motor, the approach is: small high revving engine vs large slow revving engine*. honda just chose the former philosophy.
(*technology now allows modern high displacement motor to spin fast - corvettes, sportier audis and bmws, the megacars, etc)
the reason the car feels faster around 6000rpm because engine provides abrupt increase in torque around there (vtec transition point), ultimately sending more twisting force to the wheels to accelerate the car forward.
this is the least technical thing ive ever written here but i hope it serves as decent illustration
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