I have a loaded question
the button that looks like this:
that is below everyones name in a thread (except your own name.. cant report yourself... or some admins..) PS i know there are typos and miss spellings probably everywhere
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/horsepower.htm
The Best V8 Stories One Small Block at Time
because... you're measuring the engine RPM vs how fast it accelerates a known mass (the large dyno roller).
sure you make more torque with thoes 4.60 gears... but your engine RPMs also climb faster.... so while the sample time is smaller, the data is the same as when you have 2.23s...
if you were to say, hook it up to your wheel speed sensor instead of your tach, then it would measure that rear wheel torque. or you could calculate it based on time to acclerate the drum to a speed.
its all just math.
The math is nearly the exact same as used on a Dynojet. It uses just the one sensor, an angular encoder, to determine how fast the drum speeds up and then backs out an effective thrust applied by the tires to the drum. An accelerometer does the same thing but in the moving car.
BTW, if memory serves me it derives torque from HP and RPM. If you pull the tach lead off on the dyno, you read no TQ, as it can't back it out of the equation. So, on a interia dyno, Tq isn't measured, its calculated.
Hp = Absorber Torque (in foot pounds) x RPM / 5252
In reality It's not measuring SPEED of the rotation ...it's measuring the force applied to the drum. What FORCE is exerted to roll that drum.
Horsepower cannot BE measured.......it's derived BY measuring torque and converting. Horsepower is in a sense, is unimportant. Horsepower doesn't move a vehicle. It is really a measurement of how capable the engine is of maintaining the force that really is moving the vehicle
F=ma
Where F is Force, m is mass, and a is acceleration
For our purposes, we'll rearrange it to be:
a = F / m
That is, the more force or less mass, the faster an object (such as a bike) will accelerate.
The force pushing a bike forward is the wheel spinning against the ground. The wheel has a sort of "rotational force," known as Torque. Following this torque up the line through the spinning axle, gears, the clutch, and the flywheel. Torque is related to force through the equation:
Q = F * d
Where Q is Torque, F is Force, and d is distance.
Rearranged for Force (since that's what moves the bike):
F = Q / d
That is, the higher the torque and the smaller the distance between the center of the spinning object and the place it is applying force, the more force is pushing the bike.
Bringing our two equations together:
a = (Q / d) / m
OR
a = Q / (d * m)
With a car, the mass will not change nor will the distance between the center of a wheel and the outside of the tire Since this is the case, the only thing that changes a car's acceleration is the torque at the wheels, which is the result of torque from the engine. In an ideal world, that is. In reality friction has its affects, which is where horsepower comes in.
So what's important is not only how much torque an engine makes, but also for how long it makes its good torque (referred to as its torque band). A dynometer plots out the torque over the entire range of an engine's operation. The best indicator of a bikes's acceleration is this plotted curve. Or more accurately, the area under the curve (ie, the torque times the length of the band).
Some light reading....
http://www.factorypro.com/dyno/true1.html
Last edited by RomulusSmallBlock; Aug 10, 2006 at 10:08 PM.
Also if it is not an inertia dyno the drum is not free spinning. We can stop and hold most vehicles at a chosen speed or rpm on the dyno with the absorber. Then you are getting measured TQ at that speed without any acceleration. This has very little value for most testing but it may help someone understand better.





