Quote:
Originally Posted by mkoesel
Oh? Surely a competitor with a 400hp+ Cummins turbo diesel putting out 800 ft-lb of torque could bury both an E92 M3 and F82 swamp. Right? I mean all that torque must mean something for performance, no?
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Nope, it wouldn't.
Despite adjusting the gearing (through final drive) and redline, doubling the torque (say from 300 to 600 ft lb) has nearly no impact on overall performance. However maintaining a 8000 or 8000+ redline would be pretty much impossible, perhaps 6000 or 7000 is even mathematically possible. Such a car would then reach around 400 hp way down at about half of the current actual cars redline!
Either way the cars 1/4 mile time and trap (compared to a regular M3) would be within a few tenths and a couple mph. The torque monster could, depending on the final drive ration get a decent jump on the actual car perhaps below about 50 mph (if traction was even possible). Most other major performance metrics would be very similar. Also the torque monster could do in 6th gear that the real car would need to begin in 3rd, but they would achieve about the same net result.
Why is all this the case, again simply because the cars would have the same (peak) power to weight ratio.