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      04-21-2007, 07:17 PM   #17
leftcoastman
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Quote:
Originally Posted by needforspeed View Post
Torque and horsepower are very similar.

To understand torque at the wheels you need to look at gearing. Gearing multiplies torque. This is why cars accelerate hardest in lower gears because they multiply the torque more.
While I agree that torque in and of itself isn't enough to determine how fast a car is, I wouldn't say it's so simple to say that torque multiplication is what makes low gear acceleration so rapid.

At low gearing, you are travelling at low speed. Air resistance increases as a square of speed. At higher gears, you're probably going at a high speed, therefore the power necessary to overcome that air resistance (which has been growing as a square) is much higher.
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