When is it too much

When is it too much

Alright I'm interested in what people think of this so I'm starting a topic. The average Horse Power of a new car lets say averages 160 for the sake of argueement. A real nice drag only car can average 1100 horsepower or more. Now my question is, when is it enough? For street driving purposes you'll get to the point where the car becomes hard to handle even with after market mods, or being in stop and go traffic being harder than getting with Christina Aguilara. So I'm thinking somewhere in the high 600's or low 700's. Anything more than that and you'll be running into some street daily driving problems. Keeping in mind that there is no such thing as too much horsepower, but for street driving and all there has to be a point where a line is drawn. Again all I want is opinions or a little debate. Thanks guys :wink:

anything more then 130 is too much

some degree of drivebility comes form displacement.

a 400 horse (corolla) 1.8 liter is going to have its drivability quirks due to the tuning required to run that much power.

a 400 horse (GTO) 5.7 liter is, well, stock. (as of 05 that is, 340 HP for 04)

as for road manners not realted to engine "quirks", id say 500-600 HP is the most for everyday driving, however you get used to any level of HP. my 69 nova (427 SS, 4 spd, 12 bolt posi rear) made 450 ish horses, drove just fine in town to me. (but now i spend half the day with my foot stomped on the gas, with the nova, you just had to massage the throttle for daily in-town driving.)

and FWIW, i believe top fuel cars are up arround 5000-6000 hp, but those motors get torn down after each run.... i need a little more reliability than that

well maybe somthing like a 11 sec car as a daily driver i dont think you would have to much problems ie gas milage driveability etc etc

It depends on whether you are talking about FWD or RWD. A FWD car with a curb weight under 3000 pounds, like the Rolla, would top out at 250-300hp. Much over that, and you would run into both reliabilty and safe drivabilty issues.

Typically, a RWD setup can handle more power, at least in terms of acceleration, because of rear-weight tranfer when accelerating foward. A car like the Supra could handle 500hp easily, while keep it reliable and drivable. Beyond that, it starts to get both expensive and dangerous for normal street use.

Can you imagnie what it must be like to drive a Top-Fuel dragster with 6000+hp and 5000 lbs. ft. or torque!!!! :shock:

with the TRD s/c... its a pain sometimes. The torque steer is pretty bad. Annoying sometimes.

[cough] LSD [/cough]

LOL RollaS

An LSD would be nice, especially on the snow, this open diffrential shit is getting annoying! One tire can be on a patch of ice, and the other can be on clean dry pavement, and gues what, your not goin anywhere!

i think that around 300 hp for a street car is fast enough if fwd, 400-500 for rwd, and if awd it doesnt matter that much lol ur not gonna lose traction.

The Bugatti Veyron is 1001 hp, yet it is supposed to be quite driveable, even at 250 mph.

http://www.webwombat.com.au/motoring/news_reports/bugatti1.htm

True, but it was designed that way from the get-go. Flea is referring to modded engines........I think. At least that's the way I took it.

I got my popular science magizine, they have something about a 350mph car that has 2000 hp, like this is supposedly gonna be a car sold at normal dealerships. wow. that might be too much.

here is an idea of what honda owners have

these are revhard turbo kits

Stage: 1
Use: Street
Part #: RHSTG118
MSRP: $2,799.99
Boost Level: 7psi
Injector Size: Stock
Horsepower/Torque: +65 / 215 ft/lbs


Stage: 2
Use: Street/Track
Part #: RH18IT
MSRP: $3,599.99
Boost Level: 9psi
Injector Size: Stock
Horsepower/Torque: +120 / 285 ft/lbs

Stage: 2C
Use: Street/Track
Part #: RH18ITC
MSRP: $3,799.99
Boost Level: 9psi
Injector Size: Stock
Horsepower/Torque: +120 / 285 ft/lbs

Stage: 3
Use: Track
Part No.: RHRACE
MSRP: starting $4,499.99
Boost Level: 25psi
Injector Size: 990cc (Low Impedence)
Horsepower/Torque: 550+ / 395 ft/lbs

I'm sure those kits require a built bottom end. Certainly, the last one, for sure. I would also question there reliabilty at 500+ hp. No way they would make good daily drivers.

with more than 300-350 hp on a front wheel drive car like the corolla ur gonna have major problems with wheel hop and just general drivability cuz u'll have mostly top end hp so driving in traffic will be a nightmare

There is a nightwarrior in texas somewhere making 800hp on a B18.

first 2 stages are for street. One is for quicker spool one is for a little more power. The 2 are on stock internals

the last 2 are street / full race.

That would def need a bottom end build up for 25psi. I have herd people running fine at 12-15psi on just a forged piston and rod upgrade.

There are a lot of factors to consider when talking about streetability, power is one of them but then you also have to consider power delivery, mechanical considerations with having said amount of power (stress on parts, traction,,braking etc.), effects on the driver, increased cost and higher maintainence and so on.
For a general example of what I mean let me pull some power numbers and situations that can speculatively be associated with that power level.

So say you're around 200 hp, which is plausible on an internally stock engine, if you mash the gas you'll probably have moderate torque steer and wheel hop. To work around this, the driver can simple adjust their driving style by going easy on the throttle, that doesn't cost anything and most everyone would consider the car very streetable. If the driver doesn't have the discipline or patience for that they can try things like stiffer motor mounts and/or a new differential, this should get rid of most of the torque steer unless you like doing neutral drops from 6K at every stop light. Of course those parts aren't free and stiffer motor mounts transmit stronger vibrations through the chassis, which some could find uncomfortable for day to day driving, so then you have a car which is streetable to some and not to others(although probably very few).

In my opinion if the car is purely for the street than stop here, tune the car and try to find a nice, broad powerband, and be happy.

Once you start getting into the higher power ranges (say 300+) then it's pretty safe to say you've exceeded most of the stock engine, fuel, drivetrain, and suspension components. Assuming your engine has been suitably built, you then have to start worrying about how long your transmission will hold out, cheap tires aren't going to cut it and your car will be eating tires like candy anyway. A lot of stress will be put on the suspension and axles with any hard launch, so you have to deal with the possiblity of something breaking there. The engine will need to be rebuilt more often and be meticulously maintained to make sure nothing goes wrong. Of course to be truly streetable you have to be able to run that engine on pump gas too. So if the driver and the driver's wallet are able to deal with all these things (and all the things I haven't thought of) then I guess the car could be considered streetable, but it will probably be a handful to drive in traffic or around town and if you're never going to see the track or road course then there really isn't much point in going through all the trouble and money just for a dyno queen that you probably wouldn't want as a daily driver.

As I said before all of this is speculation. Maybe you'll build a 400hp car that you drive everyday and nothing ever breaks, unlikely but possible. My main point is what would you do with it? Sure you get to tell your friends, "Hey I have 400hp daily driver" of course you'll probably have to tell them "Hey I get no traction, change tires every 10k miles and it idles like crap." I would be willing to accept those conditions on a track car, maybe even a weekend car, but as a daily driver and especially as an only car, there are just too many maintainence and reliablity issues to deal with plus you have to ask yourself how often you'll really be able to safely us the car's full potential and on the street the answer would be: never.

Those are just a few things to consider. Now excuse me, my head hurts now :wink: (oh and I should probably do some work now too ).

crap I'm a genius, forgot the end quote. So yeah all my text is in the pretty white box, with the first line being quoted, I might repost in a sec to avoid confusion and lessen my newbish manuever :roll:

I basically revised your lovely lecture which I read word by word into 1 nice extended sentance. . But yeah i never considered gas, tires, etc. Handling was my first concern, then tranny and so on. so it would probably be based on the engine itself and what can be done to it without replacing it with a more stable model. I work at a car dealership with nice cars and tires are not cheap. Real good ones at dealer prices can cost 300 bucks easy for 1 tire. But yeah I'm literally 50/50 for supercharge it then mess with it, or to swap an engine and go from there. Money is a main concern as is driving in traffic without problems. Also it might be easier if corollas were more sports oriented like the MR2 or Celica. But it's in between that and the fuel saving echo :roll: . So I could always get a 2000 celica GTS, get a nice 14 ps Supercharger from trial. Which ironically somehow isn't carb legal which has me thinking it's beasty. :wink: . But for now I'll stick with the corolla and choose my option when the time comes. Also like to thank you guys for such a nice response to such a simple yet highly complex question. :wink: