Power or Speed?
 

What do people want more of power or speed? I ask this because I always read about increasing horsepower, RWHP etc. I am not a speed or power junkie, nor do I claim to be an auto mechanic specialist, but power and speed are two totally separate issues. This is proven many times by cars that have more HP than the RX8 yet they are not as fast. There is transmission, differential, flywheel, turbo etc. So please enlighten me. Is it an obsession with raw HP? Also, again maybe it's just me, but get the RX8 moving and it has plenty of speed (stock) for the amount of HP. How many other cars are as fast with the same amount of HP? Let's use the the 350Z for example...yeah it has 280, 290 whatever it is now, but how much faster is it? Not much. I feel that people spend too much time referrring to the power of the RX8 and never mentioning all it's good points. As far as I'm concerned, if you want power then buy a GTO or Mustang. Maybe a rotary was not the car for you. This is all my opinion and I just wanted to get some of my thoughts across because I feel there is to much power bashing on our beautiful machines.

How about... a good balance of both? :) Power to climb those hills and speed to go super fast on freeways! YAAHAHAHA

Speed = power/resistance.

Resistance can come in the form or weight and mechanical/aerodynamic drag. The obsession of hp comes from people who do not want to/know how to reduce the resistance. You can reduce the weight of the car and go faster or add more power.

It gives people more of a stiffy to say, "Hey I got an extra 50 hp!", rather than say, "Hey, I reduced my car's weight by 400 lbs!"

Both should give you the same affect (alright, 400 lbs is a random number, but you get the point). An increase in speed does not always come from an increase in power. But, not too many peopel want to do away with all the safety/convenience items their car has. Therefore, they opt for the increase in power.

Take the car to a road course like Road Atlanta or something like that and you'll see that the car is plenty fast.

Right on salituro.

Technically, it's acceleration. But we all get the idea.

Also, your weight has nothing to do with how fast you can go, just how long it takes you to accelerate.

Edit: Ok, so weight has a little to do with rolling resistance... but not much.

F=ma

Direct proportion, where your desired acceleration is proportional to the force that you apply on the object. As others have stated above, you can either add Force (HP) to the left side of the equation to garner more acceleration with a standard mass, or reduce mass to make acceleration compensate for the Force that remains constant.

I've heard it stated somewhere that 100 lbs ~ 15 HP. Obviously this would be a rule of thumb and not some law of physics.

did anyone who posted after my first post read salituro's post?

I think the other replies are trying to prove the difference between power and speed. Speed is the overall capability of the car, while power generally refers to the capability of the engine.

There are many new and powerful cars, but very few of them are fast.

If we take 100lbs=15hp rule of thumb then it is much easier for people to put in underpulleys, lighter flyweight, catback exhaust, intake (you get the idea) than it is to remove 100lbs from the car (carbon fiber hood won't get you there). Short of stripping your carpet and dumping all the seat save the driver's as well as removing the exhaust and putting a straight pipe you wo'nt get 100lbs. Just my 2cents.