Engine Power
What Is Engine Power
Power is torque time rpm, simply put it represents the rate at which your engine applies torque to your vehicle to move it. The quicker it successively applies torque the quicker and more often the vehicle is ‘pushed’.
It is best described as a unit of power (brake horse power – bhp or in Europe ‘PS’ or ‘Kw’) that is measured based on what it can achieve in a certain time. Maximum power is the most amount of power that an engine can produce at full capacity.
The Physical Effects From Increased Power
Boosting power on a vehicle will mean greater torque (wheel turning force) will be applied over the same space of time as before. Also the number of ‘pushes’ the vehicle receives each second may be increased meaning the application of force to the vehicle is applied more frequently.
How Increasing Power Improves Performance
This is why boosting power leads to improved performance. It increases acceleration, with force applied more frequently over time as well as top speed for each gear range, giving the vehicle more ‘pushes’ at the top of the acceleration arc.
With force being applied more frequently, this also increases the responsiveness of the vehicle and the smoothness of the driving experience.
Engine Torque
What Is Engine Torque
If power is representative of the number of ‘pushes’ applied to the vehicle over time, torque is the strength of that push. It is a measurement of force not work, it is the explosive force of your engine.
The Physical Effects From Increased Torque
The greater the level of torque the easier it is to move your vehicle, so it plays a big part in the role of high torque activities such as towing or moving particularly large and heavy vehicles. An engine with enough torque to push a fiesta would not be ‘strong enough’ to push a large truck, no matter how hard the engine ‘worked’ in applying its weaker force. This makes it key when considering high torque activities such as towing and pulling or driving up steep inclines.
How Increasing Torque Improves Performance
By boosting the force of torque, especially earlier in the acceleration arc, a vehicle can pull away much quicker, combating inertia more easily. It will also enable higher top speeds to be reached as greater force can be applied at the top of the gear range as well.
Vehicle Economy
How Tuning Boxes Improve Economy
A single engine can be used in a wide variety of vehicles and so factory standard mappings can be inefficient when allowing for differing driving styles. Once retuned by a TDI Tuning performance device, the increases in power and torque and remapped delivery lead to a greatly improved driving style, which is where our efficiency increases come from.
By labouring less at lower revolutions per minute (rpm) and getting into the upper, more fuel efficient gears more quickly, you’ll enjoy impressive results.
How To Accurately Measure Economy
Whilst on-board computers are very accurate, the best way to check your fuel efficiency gains, as many of our customers do, is to do a manual calculation.
By resetting your odometer when next filling up at the pump and ensuring you fill up to the maximum from the same point on the fuel gauge each time, it’s easy to calculate the real life fuel efficiency benefits you are seeing from our product.