Drivetrain loss

[TxCobrA98]

paul has it right and knows what he is saying, to figure it out, just compare engine dyno with a chassis dyno. i know you can't just go do that but thats the only real way to do it.

and there is no one percentage you can use. i think we all understand that it is not correct to yield an 18% difference off a 600hp car and to do the same with a 250hp car.

at least it doesn't logically make sense to me either. i try not to deal with these sort of things because i know you wont get it right. at least i wont haha.

 

[OnyxCobra]

It simply does not make sense that the more power an engine makes the more power the drivetrain uses. Like mentioned the only real way to know the difference is to engine dyno and chassis dyno the vehicle. It's impossible that a 600hp car has a drivetrain that uses 100hp...

 

[cntchds]

I'll start this off by saying, I'm a sixteen year old kid, and don't really know what I'm talking about. This is just an observation.

When a car is putting out 100 WHP (we'll use that fifteen percent example) then it is making 115 at the flywheel. Does it not make sense that a 600 WHP car is trying to spin the drivetrain faster, and therefore needs to use more power getting the power to the wheels? I would agree with Paul that the percentages were made simply to estimate power at the flywheel, but there is some logic to saying that a 600 WHP car is losing a lot more along the way than a 100 WHP car. A set percentage for all cars is kind of unreasonable though.

 

[Peter]

to make 100rw hp with a 15% drive train loss the engine would have approx 118hp not 115.

friction HP loss from one drivetrain piece would be the same from car to car regardless of the engines output.

if a torque converter is really tight and takes 20 hp to spin why would a car making more or less power somehow change how much power is required to spin that torque converter.