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. ...
Forum Discussion
More is better all things being equal, but things never are equal. What trade off do you make, up front cost, fuel economy, reliability, emissions, maint cost.....
Torque is kinda meaningless without horsepower. Like other have mentioned years back you could get a diesel with 400 torque and 160 horsepower, or today you can get a gas v8 with 400 torque and 380 horsepower. The torque is the same but the modern v8 will tow circles around the old diesel.
225 horse will get the job done, more will get it done faster, more torque will do it at a lower rpm.
Where will it end for pickup torque and horsepower? Who knows, when the tradeoffs start to outweigh the want for the power. I think the upper end of what can be used in a pickup is about 650 horse. That gets the biggest 5ers and toyhaulers up interstate grades at 65-70. That also happens to put them equal with the biggest engines offered in a class 8 tractor power wise.
Torque is kinda meaningless without horsepower. Like other have mentioned years back you could get a diesel with 400 torque and 160 horsepower, or today you can get a gas v8 with 400 torque and 380 horsepower. The torque is the same but the modern v8 will tow circles around the old diesel.
225 horse will get the job done, more will get it done faster, more torque will do it at a lower rpm.
Where will it end for pickup torque and horsepower? Who knows, when the tradeoffs start to outweigh the want for the power. I think the upper end of what can be used in a pickup is about 650 horse. That gets the biggest 5ers and toyhaulers up interstate grades at 65-70. That also happens to put them equal with the biggest engines offered in a class 8 tractor power wise.
