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Engine sizes


Tony Jones

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At one time, engines were usually described either by capacity (litres or cc) or by "horsepower." I understood the first, and knew what the second was about even though I'd no idea how it was calculated. (I had this wonderful vision of some kind of test track, with a van racing against an engineless version pulled by various numbers of horses. Or maybe it was a tug of war, with the van trying to go forward and seeing how many horses had to be harnessed to the back to keep it still?)

 

Anyway, I digress. My point in writing is that both these terms seems to have disappeared. Everyone now seems to talk about ewngines in terms of "ps" or "bps." What the heck are THESE beasts, and how do I decide how many of them I need? I've arranged a test drive with one firm next month, and they've offered tests with both a 100ps and a 130ps Transit, so that'll help, but before I go I'd love to know what it actually means!

 

Can anyone enlighten me?

 

Tony

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Hi,

 

Basically Ps is the metric horse power whereas Bhp is the one you envisage with the horse having a tug of war.

 

Technically speaking a Ps is 0.98 of a Bhp. So just think of 1 Ps as 1 Bhp and you wont be far wrong.

 

Hope that helps, as to which one you need if you are test driving them both you will notice the 130ps will be quicker as it has 30 more horses under the bonnet.

 

 

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Guest starspirit

The following are all in use by various manufacturers.

 

Power

 

100 bhp = 103 ps = 75 kw

100 ps = 97 bhp = 73 kw

100 kw = 137 ps = 133 bhp

 

Torque

 

100 ftlb = 135 nm = 14.1 mkg

100 nm = 74 ftlb = 10.4 mkg

10.0 mkg = 71 ftlb = 95 nm

 

From these you can recalculate any measurement into any other.

 

It may help or it may confuse but I did try to help!

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