How many horses does a car need to be considered powerful?
Discussion
There's so many different factors at play. Yes power to weight is a good indicator but not the be all and end all. Most modern cars have big power to compensate in the inevitable weight gain from all the new tech toys and safety equipment and use clever technology in chassis and electronics to mask it but throw me in an earlier M3, hot hatch, Japanese import etc etc and I will have more fun with less power but I will feel like I'm going faster. Alot of newer performance cars lose so much character with *usable power and really don't feel fast despite their figures.
Most modern performance cars driven at 7/10ths are enough to give you an instant driving ban or a serious accident so it's irrelevant how powerful they really are if they don't let you explore the limits in a reasonably safe capacity
Most modern performance cars driven at 7/10ths are enough to give you an instant driving ban or a serious accident so it's irrelevant how powerful they really are if they don't let you explore the limits in a reasonably safe capacity
200bhp was enough in 1989, before the age of electronic aids.
300bhp is probably the sweet spot today for s daily family car, as seen by the amount of people who rave about cars of that benchmark. Golf R for example, ticks a number of boxes, (if It doesn’t get nicked).
400bhp is nice in a road car; - if the chassis concerned allows you to put ALL the power down..
500bhp will ruin a previously 300bhp roads cars experience as a daily and you will rarely use all of it daily, but that same power feels just right in a large two tonne barge like a Bentley.
IMHO, of course. But, everyone has different experiences, has owned different cars and formed their own opinions.
300bhp is probably the sweet spot today for s daily family car, as seen by the amount of people who rave about cars of that benchmark. Golf R for example, ticks a number of boxes, (if It doesn’t get nicked).
400bhp is nice in a road car; - if the chassis concerned allows you to put ALL the power down..
500bhp will ruin a previously 300bhp roads cars experience as a daily and you will rarely use all of it daily, but that same power feels just right in a large two tonne barge like a Bentley.
IMHO, of course. But, everyone has different experiences, has owned different cars and formed their own opinions.
Monkeylegend said:
Variable vane turbo means there is no turbo lag and it pulls from tickover with no hesitation up to 4500 rpm, so the useful range is no different from a petrol turbo that doesn't kick in until 3000 rpm up to 6500 rpm, it just all happens at lower revs.
For an 80's turbo perhapsModern petrol turbos start making boost around 1500-2000rpm and rev to 7000+
So the useful range is much wider
Maxym said:
200 bhp is enough for anybody...
doors over there, the brake forum is second on the left.My omega is after a few tweaks probably around 230 bhp it really could do with another 100 bhp
i've got a diesel mondeo with north of 200 bhp its neither fun nor fast.
200 bhp in something like a mk1 golf or a fiesta XR2 is sufficient. but it all boils down to power to weight my 2 are lardy big buses tipping the scales at 1600kg which twice the weight of the 2 hatches i've mentioned
either of them would be fun with 400 bhp i;d imagine, so maybe 200 bhp/ton would be a sensible figure
Strong Horse said:
Cars have gotten a lot more powerful in the last 15 or so years. I think a lot of this is due to turbo engines getting more common and turbo's getting better. But I think cars power bands are peaking around now so I suspect cars released in the next 10 years wont continue to have more and more power.
Cars have been able to produce high power for years going well into 80s/90s, just manufacturers have only been able to warranty them in the past decade or so. BMW Mercedes Audi Lexus Ford etc now all produce 400/500/600bhp+ mass produced cars with 3 year warranty quite happilywormus said:
Not really. Even my old Saab with its 90s turbo technology pulls from 2k rpm to 6k. Easy to humiliate modern diesel nasties as a turbo petrol is simply better. Only reason to drive a wheezle is if you are mean.
er, no it doesn'tSure, it obviously makes it's normally aspirated (unboosted) torque (lets say 65 Nm/l, or around 130 Nm for a 2.0) up to the boost threshold and then on it can make it's boosted torque until an engine speed where the small turbo chokes flow back again. The reason it "feels" like it performs ok is simply because it is not a heavily boosted engine (as standard) and hence there is no a large step in output above the boost threshold.
In reality, modern turbo engines make 90% of their torque output across a far wider rev range than your old saab, irrespective of what fuel they run on.....
For example, my 'crappy' diesel makes the same or greater torque than your engine does at PEAK, between 1200 rpm and 5100rpm. As it idles at 650 rpm, that means it can outperform your petrol engine across 87.6% of it's available rev range). The advantage of a petrol engine is simply in terms of specific output, because they don't have the same burn rate limitation as compression ignition engines, they can make more power for any given capacity, however if capacity is not limited then that advantage is irrelevant (ie in road cars where you can make the engine any size you see fit)
V8RX7 said:
Monkeylegend said:
Variable vane turbo means there is no turbo lag and it pulls from tickover with no hesitation up to 4500 rpm, so the useful range is no different from a petrol turbo that doesn't kick in until 3000 rpm up to 6500 rpm, it just all happens at lower revs.
For an 80's turbo perhapsModern petrol turbos start making boost around 1500-2000rpm and rev to 7000+
So the useful range is much wider
I've just treated myself to a 2004 Caterham R500 Superlight. The original 1.8 Rover (250 bhp) engine ate itself 3 years ago and the fella i bought it from fitted a Ford 2.3 inline-4 motor to it and got it set up nicely with a new custom exhaust, hairier camshaft and a cold air intake system, on a rolling road.
The bhp figure of just over 270 is nothing special these days, a 1.6 hot hatchback makes that, but it's stripped out and the weight of circa 430 kgs, means that this thing is OMG fast up to a certain point, where the barn door aerodynamics have all the say to further progress. 270 bhp / 430 kgs = QUICK!
I've not timed it yet but this is a 0-60 mph in around 2.5 seconds car i would say and up to around 110 mph, which covers 99% of 99% peoples' road time, it's very similar to my nephew's 2016 991 turbo S. He simply clears off after about 120.
PTW is the big thing in many ways.
But what is high power these days? Ask 50 people and get 20 answers probably. Me, i'd say any car with over 500 bhp is mega-powerful. I drove a Porsche 4x4 in France last year, a huge and heavy beast but the 550 bhp 4.8 V8 twin turbo felt really quick. Power does talk of course.
The bhp figure of just over 270 is nothing special these days, a 1.6 hot hatchback makes that, but it's stripped out and the weight of circa 430 kgs, means that this thing is OMG fast up to a certain point, where the barn door aerodynamics have all the say to further progress. 270 bhp / 430 kgs = QUICK!
I've not timed it yet but this is a 0-60 mph in around 2.5 seconds car i would say and up to around 110 mph, which covers 99% of 99% peoples' road time, it's very similar to my nephew's 2016 991 turbo S. He simply clears off after about 120.
PTW is the big thing in many ways.
But what is high power these days? Ask 50 people and get 20 answers probably. Me, i'd say any car with over 500 bhp is mega-powerful. I drove a Porsche 4x4 in France last year, a huge and heavy beast but the 550 bhp 4.8 V8 twin turbo felt really quick. Power does talk of course.
Maxym said:
200 bhp is enough for anybody...
Not me. The last car I had with 200bhp went back to the lease company in 1999.Since then it's gone 240bhp, 306bhp, 306bhp, 310bhp and 388bhp.
The latest one is quite lardy and so the bhp/ton works out at around 200. Which feels about right.
It's a large petrol so also very torquey, no problems with turbos, DPF's EGR's and no problems with NoX and particulates.
300 bhp per tonne or over feels pretty rapid. 400 - 500 bhp per tonne and you're into Lamborghini, Ariel Atom quick, over 500 and it's into Bugatti/McLaren territory.
There's an interesting list here:
https://www.autosnout.com/Cars-Bhp-Per-Ton-List.ph...
There's an interesting list here:
https://www.autosnout.com/Cars-Bhp-Per-Ton-List.ph...
V8RX7 said:
Monkeylegend said:
Ford Ecoboost, Peugeot Pure Tech and Vauxhall 1.4 turbo.
Ah we are talking about different types of car - I haven't driven anything under 1.8T for many yearsAlthough a quick google suggests the ecoboost develops boost from 1700rpm
You can't beat a large capacity NA petrol.
As I approach a roundabout from a fast moving A road I like to pretend I'm in the fast and furious movies by engine braking.
Its great fun matching the revs when you downshift so I bring the engine screaming into the 5,000 range which means I can save on my breaks and have some weird manly feeling.
If I bought a diesel I would worry about blowing up the engine by over revving the thing while trying to use engine braking whilst going down hill.
Its great fun matching the revs when you downshift so I bring the engine screaming into the 5,000 range which means I can save on my breaks and have some weird manly feeling.
If I bought a diesel I would worry about blowing up the engine by over revving the thing while trying to use engine braking whilst going down hill.
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