What is Torque?

Torque, and its good pal horse power are best understood in context. So, lets take them in the context of cars.

Torque and horse power measure the performance of the engine. There are many little things you can do to increase both of them, and often an upgraded component will affect both. A poorly made generalization however would be that horse power depends on the speed the engine rotates, the "RPMs" and the torque depends on the compression ratio. This is why diesels have much more torque. And rotary engines have good horse power, but no torque.

So, what exactly do they mean for a car? First of all, it is important to understand that boys and girls view cars differently. Boys care about torque (especially low end torque) and horse power, where as girls care if it is "cute." So the following general rules apply primarily to boys.

Torque is an indication of how much the driver is "compensating." Horse Power is inversely proportional to I.Q.

So, a new Dodge Viper Roadster has 600 hp and 560 lb-ft of torque. On the compensation scale this corresponds to an 8 or a 9 depending on the rims and after market accessories (fuzzy dice would be a 9). This is a relative scale from a 1 = Yugo to 10 = Lamborghini. It is important to note that factors other than just torque affect the compensation factor. For example, it is theoretically possible to get a Yugo up to a low 5 by dropping in a new drive train, fancy paint job, spinner rims, limo tint, etc.

The I.Q. would be around 73 based on the following formula:

I.Q. = |100 * (H.P. - 100)/H.P.|

This is only a starting point for the I.Q. however. Additional factors need to be concidered, for instance any horse power gained after the car was driven of the lot counts double, so a car with 100 base HP, that now has 200 would require the value 300 be used in the formula.