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Torque?

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Sir_DoomsDay

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Could anyone please tell me (in simple english) what are "foot pounds of torque"? I know that this question may sound silly, but I come from Poland, and i'm clueless about what could it mean. Can it be somehow translated to horsepower??
 
I am not too sure about the relation to Horsepower, but foot pounds are the amount of force applied over the distance. You may be more familiar with Newton Meters.

For example:

52 foot pounds would be the force needed to move 52 pounds a foot, or 1 pound 52 feet.

Hope that helps. I am sure more knowledgable members will correct my physics.
 
A good place to start would be to look here (and a lot of it is car-related):

https://www.epi-eng.com/PwTq.htm

"foot pounds" is a measure of torque. It does not involve a unit of time. Torque is a twisting force. When a large man sits on a See-Saw he applies a lot of torque on the pivot point and the See-Saw goes down. There is no time measure involved.
Horsepower involves time. It it a measure of lifting a certain weight in one minute. Horsepopwer is a mesasure of work and work always involves a measure of time.

My explaination is intentially skimpy. Go to the web page I have cited and read it carefully.
 
Yup, in Poland you would be familiar with newton-meters. Broadly speaking, torque is the push you feel in your back... it's sometimes loosely called "grunt".

Horsepower can actually be calculated from torque. Unfortunately, I can't remember the formula.

Personally, I'm more interested in an engine's torque curve than it's horsepower curve.
 
Yes, in Poland we use newton-meters (but i never knew what they were either
smile.gif
). I'm simply a newbe to world of car mechanics but your posts helped me understand it a bit. Big Thanx!!
 
To convert ft\lb to Nm Divide Torque by 0.7376
The How things work site is pretty neat.
CDK
 
Wow! Indeed How things work site is something. At last I have possibility of finding out everything I want to know about mechanics (and many more). Thanks for the link, Orange !!!!!
 
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