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Horses VS tourque.

2K views 22 replies 13 participants last post by  panhead_pete 
#1 ·
With my new Caddy motor it seems that on the Caddy websites that tourque is king. Whats your take on it? Would you rather have 500 horses and 600ft lbs of tourque or vice versa? HG
 
#2 ·
depends on what you are going to do with all that torque. i've put those caddies in chevy pickups and they make excellant tow rig motors, good pulling power ,decent gas mileage, fairly light. if you want h.p. then you will have to spend lots of money on that motor, everybody is proud of caddy parts stock or custom, an eddlebrock intake is recommended tho.
 
#3 ·
I am in the torque camp myself. I prefer a good streetable motor and building for torque will do that.

A friend once asked me why I prefer big blocks and I said look at the cars I like. I like big cars. Just more comfortable in them. So I prefer a good torque making big block to move a barge down the road at a respectable clip.
 
#5 ·
HG, I have an article on putting EFI on a beefed up 500 Caddy (560 cubes) fot a BIG motor home. Guess they were looking for the pulling power (torque) over the Rockies and crusing (horsepower) and 10 MPG vice 6 over a 454, across the plains. What kind of tranny are you planning behind it? Neighbooring street roder put a 500 in his 48 Chevy sedan and never wiped out his TH400.
 
#6 ·
Id like a good short tailed th400, but Im leaning twords rebuilding and bulletproofing my powerglide. Al from MTS said them 500's love big gear changes and thought it would really wake up the 500 without giving to much wheel spin. I'll have some time to think it over. HG
 
#7 ·
Horsepower is a calculation off of torque, so torque is definately king. If you plug some numbers in the following formula you can see how it works:

Horsepower = (Torque*5252)/Engine RPM

You will see that the RPM the torque is developed at dictates the Hp.

Chris
 
#8 ·
HG, I have a TH400 with a short 350 tail housing and shaft (sometimes referred to 375). It also has a unique electrically controlled varriable pitch torque converter that would be interesting tied to your 500. They were manufactured for the 68, 69 Pontiacs, Buicks and I think Cadilacs. They had an electric slide switch or totary switch hooked to the throttle linkage and worked sorta like this.. Idle to about 5% throttle, TC locked in low pitch (RPM increasing, not much happening to rear wheels) above 5% throttle, TQ shifts to High pitch (Coming up on HP and Torque curve, lots happening to rear wheels). Now do away with slide switch and hook up a manual controll switch like into the pushbutton type cruise control switch and you have an awesome launching capability. We had this ine a Caprice Classic Wagon to pull a 12,000 # boat and trailer up the ramp. Also embarrassed a few Z28 and Boss stangs after a day of fishing and trailer parked. Course the tweaked 383 helped things along a bit. I can send you some detailed info if you like.
 
#11 ·
Wmarden thanks for the links. Hope you dont mind me piggy backing your topic here HG. Trees any chance you can copy that same info to me? panhead_pete@hotmail.com I read about that tranny on the MTS site. Looks like the go. Thanks mate. Couldn't believe my luck, just went for a walk and saw a big caddy parked around the block, looks like its been there a while. Not sure what it is. Anyone know a good caddy ID site? Only about the third one Ive seen in australia.

As for torque Vs HP give me a big fat and flat torque curve anyday.

[ November 05, 2002: Message edited by: panhead_pete ]

[ November 05, 2002: Message edited by: panhead_pete ]</p>
 
#13 ·
I think those are 472s, but honestly those are still pretty good motors. Will do most anything a 500 will do.

Another thing, if you do a google search for "switch pitch transmission" as a phrase you will find lots of info. I knew the buick page, but didn't know the address. So a quick google search got it to show up and a few other interesting pages.
 
#19 ·
Let me put this in perspective...
All the horsepower in the world won't get you moving, But torque will. I've built 350hp V6s,
but they made 200lb/ft of torque, in a light car,
they were fine, but in a 4000lb sled they'd suck...

Steve & the Rockette...
Too many to list...
 
#20 ·
Originally posted by TurboS10:
<strong>Horsepower is a calculation off of torque, so torque is definately king. If you plug some numbers in the following formula you can see how it works:

Horsepower = (Torque*5252)/Engine RPM

You will see that the RPM the torque is developed at dictates the Hp.

Chris</strong><hr></blockquote>


Man I screwed this up. Lets try again:


Horsepower = (Torque*Engine RPM)/5252

Chris
 
#22 ·
This link will take you to a real good explination of torque and horsepower.

http://www.vettenet.org/torquehp.html

If you look at the formula, you can increase horsepower by one of two ways. You can make more torque, or you can make your torque at a higher rpm. When you make torque at a higher rpm, a lower gear can be used. This lower gear multiplies the torque. The lower the rpm, the less gear you can use and maintain the same speed. A high torque/low rpm car can be as fast as a low torque/ high rpm car. A low rpm/ high torque motor is nicer to drive on the street. In a race car, it is by far easier to multiply the torque with gears than it is to add torque to the motor. Either way.... you want a high horsepower number. Dan
 
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