Vindication at last!

[BigDick]

I'm gonna throw this out here real quick


A hardley bashing thread seems an appropriate place to leave it.

[cueball]

Go Metric

One of these century's you lot might go metric and catch up with the rest of the planet. Woking in base 10 is s$%tloads easier than the outdated base 12 of imperial

[jmnjrpa]

Now don't get this wrong cause I love the land of AZ and the people there are the greatest. My concern is ya'll left half the numbers out with "10". I suspect someone forgot to take their shoes off??

[cueball]

I see yer point

Was thinking of how 10mm equals 1 centimetre, which is where it starts from. And then decimal points are way easier to work out than fractions. Having said that i will admit that Oz went metric at the end of year 6 for me, so i got 6 years of imperial and 4 of metric. Still think in imp terms for some stuff like plug gaps etc;

[oseaghdha]

I'm bilingual when it comes to measurements.
Working in industry, you run into both systems.

Converting units is always causing problems. There was a Mars probe that got Knivaned because of an error in converting to/from Metric.

[kjohnson]

Consequently it never made sense to me how you could have torque increasing while horsepower decreases like in a comparison of a v-twin and an inline four of the same displacement. Maybe it has something to do with time/speed. Can someone explain this?

It really has to do with how the engine breathes. That will dictate the shape of the torque curve, and thereby the max HP. Since HP is calculated off of measured torque using hp=(RPM X torque)/5252, it can be fairly easily seen how a low reving engine can make gobs of torque but very little hp. Inversly is true as well, a high reving engine can make lots of hp, but have a low torque output.

I'm willing to bet that many V-twin engines have a very "peaky" torque curve, where as most inlines will have a "plateau" shaped one.

[trbig]

I was watching a video of Jay Leno's garage recently. This episode was on his Stanley steam powered car. He said it made @ 20hp with somewhere @ 700-800ft/lbs of torque! Pretty interesting video if you have 17+ minutes to kill. He's a very knowledgeable guy.


Jay Leno's Stanley Steamer


Tod

[Ivan]

To put it simple, torque is force, and horse power is work. torque:amps::horsepower:watts (I think I got that right...)

And one horsepower is 550 ft-lb-sec. (once again IIRC)

[BigDick]

Was thinking of how 10mm equals 1 centimetre, which is where it starts from. And then decimal points are way easier to work out than fractions. Having said that i will admit that Oz went metric at the end of year 6 for me, so i got 6 years of imperial and 4 of metric. Still think in imp terms for some stuff like plug gaps etc;

The best I can get is 13 mm = 1/2 " Does that count for anything?

[Trainzz]

my take

Appreciate your vindication, although recently my asphalt battle haven't been with Harley boys. It the Kawa Vulcan riders that "try" to run past my old clunker. Came home this morning from the western part of the state. Nice little 130 mile putt. About thirty miles from home, ran up on 3 Vulcans. Followed them for about five miles, but since my old ass was tired, decided to go a little faster than their 65 mph. Waited for a long stretch of clear, then went on around at about 75-80. Decided to run at that speed for a while just to get home.

For the next few miles, one or the other of them would run up on me, but not pass. I put up with this for a few times, but finally ran it up to about 6500-7000 rpm and went my merry way. (Speedo only goes to 85).

I was while I was pulling into the garage, that I started laffin' like a maniac. It occurred to me that what must have ticked them off was me shifting from 3rd to 4th, then 5th as I went by them.

Some days it is worth getting out of bed.

[dbeardslee]

KJ - Thanks for the formula - now it makes sense.

Trainzz - funny you should mention vulcans. In may the SWOXS group had a little ride through southern Indiana, and we had a Harley Ultra Classic and a Kawasaki Vulcan that came along. If you think they're lacking in the speed department, you should see their handling. When we hit the twisties they could barely keep up any speed without dragging their footboards. That sure made XS's feel like crotch rockets. Kinda makes you feel sorry for them .

[cueball]

Metric conversion

12.7 mm = 1/2", 25.4 mm = 1", 304.8 mm = 1', 39.4 thou = 1 mm, have a nice headache figuring it out

[Ivan]

1 LY (Light Year)= 9,454,000,000,000,000,000,000 mm

Just in case that might help someone.

[Wildkat]

1 LY (Light Year)= 9,454,000,000,000,000,000,000 mm

Gosh Ivan... I thought it was...

1 lightyear = 9,460,528,405,000,000,000 millimeters

Give or take an inch

[oseaghdha]

Gosh Ivan... I thought it was...

1 lightyear = 9,460,528,405,000,000,000 millimeters

Give or take an inch

9,446,646,991,896,576,000, actually*.



*Math is hard.