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Post by scootman on Aug 19, 2014 0:09:08 GMT 10
Ive often seen adds for VV's where they say "Suitable for a 10hp Car" is there anyone out there who can make an equivalence between Hp and todays litreage? cheers Scoot
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Post by King Fisher on Aug 19, 2014 8:44:47 GMT 10
Horse power was the energy that one horse generated. These days horse power is often still used as a gauge of grunt. However the modern metric equivalent is the kilo watt (Kw). The conversion for HP to Kw is 1Hp = 0.7355 Kw. To give you an idea of how puny 10Hp is a modern Toyota Corolla is 103Kw which is the same as 140Hp!
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Post by Geoff & Jude on Aug 19, 2014 10:04:00 GMT 10
the horsepower that is in question is actually a british taxable horsepower rating which has nothing to do with the amount of output power or brake horsepower of the engine.
taxable horsepower was calculated by squaring the the engine bore (in inches), multiplying that figure by the number of cylinders then dividing the result by 2.5
the result was the basis for taxing the early british car buyers based on these engine dimensions and the formula.
the engine capacity (cc's or cubic inches) had no effect on this result because the stroke of the engine was not included in the calculation and as a result, meant that most british engines were undersquare (bore smaller than stroke) compared to american engines that were oversquare (bore larger than stroke).
the british engines had much higher rated or brake horsepower than the stated taxable horsepower.
eg. the austin 10 had a taxable horsepower of 10 hp but a rated horsepower of 21 bhp. as a comparison, the model t ford, which also had 21 bhp, had a taxable horsepower of 22.5 hp because of it's larger bore. (3.75" compared to 2.5" for the austin).
to answer scootman's original question, since brake horsepower is usually only measured as an actual output on a machine such as a dynamometer and taxable horsepower is not influenced by actual engine capacity, there is no equivalence between taxable horsepower and brake horsepower or engine capacity.
geoff 'n jude
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Post by sutcac on Aug 19, 2014 10:26:57 GMT 10
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Post by Gypsy 10 on Aug 19, 2014 14:44:32 GMT 10
I used to own an Austin 10(hp) engine was rated at 1125cc would not pull the skin off a rice pudding. Great little car though.
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Post by scootman on Aug 20, 2014 0:10:37 GMT 10
thanks for that guys. I think?!
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Post by Don Ricardo on Aug 20, 2014 10:54:22 GMT 10
Hi Scootman and others, A while ago I posted an article about the towing capacity of various 1960's British and other vehicles in the Technical section of the forum here. It may provide some useful info in relation to your question about the towing capacity of 10 hp vehicles. The pages are a bit hard to read, but if you're interested I may be able to email you a copy of the scans which may be clearer, or if there is a specific piece of info you want, let me know and I will try and decipher it from my copy. Don Ricardo
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