Kevin Lang
Well-Known Member
Ok, how do cars with FAR lower displacement in their engines produce more horsepower than those with greater displacement?
The buick 3800 series I engine is 3.8 L and makes 170 HP, give or take. The Vintage Gen1 ST is 4.0L of displacement, and makes what, 210 hp?
The hyundai sonata, with the v6 in the last generation (98-04) has 2.7 litres of displacement, yet it makes 173 hp. What is the tradeoff here? Lack of useful torque?
I bring this up because my friend is now driving one around, and he flaunts its driving abilities. The car does have a kick to it at low speeds, while accelerating, like it wants to jump up...so noticable that I, as a passenger, could feel it. Of course, my mom's toyota rav4 also has that low-speed-acceleration kick, but once you hit 65 mph, good luck going faster. After that, the car will not obey its master and accelerate. Of course, my mom believes that 65 mph is fast enough for all purposes (cough)....though I come from a family who has members who actually say things like "I have all the performance I need". Who can honestly say that?
(certainly no one who goes to this site)
Anyhow, does the hyundai have any power to it, or is it all just gimmicks, and more importantly, how does the engine achieve such an unrealistically high hp rating...what does it loose, because we aren't burning gas with higher displacement for nothing. It must be torque, but I'm all confused by ratings.
The fact that Horsepower can be semanticized for the press has screwed my self-learned perception of performance: moving 500 pounds one foot, or moving one pound 500 feet is the same thing, in horsepower land, but it's a vastly different thing when it comes to actual performance. Are the high-displacement "man engines" more of the former, while the high-revving girly engines the latter?
Please help me correct my flawed learning here
Oh, and my friend has totally bought into the press hype of making a speedometer ranked higher than a car can actually go. The sonata is ranked on the speedometer to 160, and not even my insistence that the Police Interceptor Crown Victoria can only go 135 max from the factory could dissuade him from the notion that he could go that fast...though thankfully he refused to test it. Hyundai is an acronym meaning Hope you understand nothing is drivable and inexpensive, so I don't want to be in a high speed impact in one
**Although, on my Vintage Buick LeSabre (I love that car, though she is totaled for the moment) I had a straight bar speedometer, and you *could* push the needle past the end of the number ranking
(though my speedometer was heinously innacurate once you passed 40 mph...so I don't think I ever went 100+ mph--the car is limited to 107--but the speedometer would have shown it if I did...a tangent)
The buick 3800 series I engine is 3.8 L and makes 170 HP, give or take. The Vintage Gen1 ST is 4.0L of displacement, and makes what, 210 hp?
The hyundai sonata, with the v6 in the last generation (98-04) has 2.7 litres of displacement, yet it makes 173 hp. What is the tradeoff here? Lack of useful torque?
I bring this up because my friend is now driving one around, and he flaunts its driving abilities. The car does have a kick to it at low speeds, while accelerating, like it wants to jump up...so noticable that I, as a passenger, could feel it. Of course, my mom's toyota rav4 also has that low-speed-acceleration kick, but once you hit 65 mph, good luck going faster. After that, the car will not obey its master and accelerate. Of course, my mom believes that 65 mph is fast enough for all purposes (cough)....though I come from a family who has members who actually say things like "I have all the performance I need". Who can honestly say that?
(certainly no one who goes to this site)
Anyhow, does the hyundai have any power to it, or is it all just gimmicks, and more importantly, how does the engine achieve such an unrealistically high hp rating...what does it loose, because we aren't burning gas with higher displacement for nothing. It must be torque, but I'm all confused by ratings.
The fact that Horsepower can be semanticized for the press has screwed my self-learned perception of performance: moving 500 pounds one foot, or moving one pound 500 feet is the same thing, in horsepower land, but it's a vastly different thing when it comes to actual performance. Are the high-displacement "man engines" more of the former, while the high-revving girly engines the latter?
Please help me correct my flawed learning here
Oh, and my friend has totally bought into the press hype of making a speedometer ranked higher than a car can actually go. The sonata is ranked on the speedometer to 160, and not even my insistence that the Police Interceptor Crown Victoria can only go 135 max from the factory could dissuade him from the notion that he could go that fast...though thankfully he refused to test it. Hyundai is an acronym meaning Hope you understand nothing is drivable and inexpensive, so I don't want to be in a high speed impact in one
**Although, on my Vintage Buick LeSabre (I love that car, though she is totaled for the moment) I had a straight bar speedometer, and you *could* push the needle past the end of the number ranking
(though my speedometer was heinously innacurate once you passed 40 mph...so I don't think I ever went 100+ mph--the car is limited to 107--but the speedometer would have shown it if I did...a tangent)
