Revhead Ramblings: Can You Have Too Much Horsepower?

No one needs a 50-room mansion, a 400-foot yacht or a 700-horsepower car. If someone offered any of these to you however, you’d snatch their arm off.

We’re within reach of a hatchback that will break the 400 horsepower barrier, it’s common that hyper cars have more than 1000 horsepower, but when does it all stop? Besides in a game of pub top trumps, when can you really use all of that power to your advantage?

When you think about truly great cars, some powerhouses come to mind, the McLaren F1 or the Bugatti Veyron; under the same blanket however, come the Fiesta ST and Mazda MX-5, not because of their speed, but their outright fun factor and the fact that the power is available to use on every road.

Torque issues

It’s all well and good having an engine that’ll shoot flames out of the exhaust and produce g forces to restructure your face on a corner, but we’re nearing the stage now where, like the Bugatti Veyron, the tyres need to be glued to the alloys themselves to prevent the alloy spinning without the tyre itself!

Although this technology isn’t all that revolutionary, it’s amazing that cars now can produce so much torque. This will be especially present in electric cars, as all the vehicles torque is available instantly, causing huge problems for the tyres when trying to keep up.

Fast cars make us lazy

There’s also an argument that high horsepower cars make us lazier and worse drivers as a result. In racing situations, you can afford to lose a few milliseconds in the corners because you know you have enough power to make up for it on the subsequent straight.

In the past however, with less powerful engines, unless you kept your engine in its sweet spot through long bends you could lose all your momentum coming out of the turn and be more susceptible to turbo lag; a race killer.

It’ll all end in tears

The quest for horsepower can ruin you both financially and emotionally. You form a bond with your car from the minute you buy it, this is evident when you choose to modify your car rather than trade it in for a more powerful model.

So, after spending countless hours researching what you need to do to extract some more ponies from the motor and possibly many more in the workshop. You’ll be immensely proud of your achievement, and the thousands of pounds you poured into it will all seem justified.

Now imagine pulling up at the drag strip with your highly tuned, fire breathing rocket for it to blow its engine half way down the track. It’s a heart-wrenching thought but an all too common sight amongst inexperienced petrol heads who don’t understand the limits of stock cylinder heads and standard pistons.

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