Torque.... how much is needed for a pickup ?
I see we have somewhere in the vicinity of 750- 800 ft. lbs. of torque in 2014 pickups, with turbo diesel engines. A number of years ago 450-500 ft. lbs of torque was considered a torquemeister. ...
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Stepping into the way-back machine, I remember reading a truck mag around 1990-1991 talking about the Dodge Cummins and it's 400ft-lb of torque being "enough to tow a house!"
Here we are, with trucks putting out DOUBLE that amount of torque, and more than 2x the HP of the engine being praised.
I do think there's a limit though; there will come a point when the tradeoff of power vs. economy just won't make much sense, unless fuel burning technology gets so good that we can have 550hp and 1000+ft-lb and still get reasonable MPG.
Besides, as mentioned, what good would that type of output do for a chassis that couldn't handle loads that called for that much power?
Here we are, with trucks putting out DOUBLE that amount of torque, and more than 2x the HP of the engine being praised.
I do think there's a limit though; there will come a point when the tradeoff of power vs. economy just won't make much sense, unless fuel burning technology gets so good that we can have 550hp and 1000+ft-lb and still get reasonable MPG.
Besides, as mentioned, what good would that type of output do for a chassis that couldn't handle loads that called for that much power?
