Re: What is torque in relation to car power?
Eh, I thought the dude wanted a layman's explanation? lol
Ok, imagine you are trying to twist the cap off a bottle and it's pretty much stuck. That twisting force you are applying is a torque. Now bear in mind, torque can exist even though there is no motion - you can definitely feel that you are applying that twisting force trying to turn the cap, even though it's stuck and not moving.
So, in engine terms, torque is the ability of the engine to twist/turn the wheels/drive shaft. Imagine you start to twist the wheel of a car to move it forward. Since you cannot humanly apply a large enough force, the car will not move at first. But if you maintain that twisting force long enough, the car may eventually start moving. That's an illustration of low torque.
If you were a giant/superman, you can give a great big twist right from the start and the car immediately starts moving. That's high torque.
So if your engine has high torque, it can start the car moving forward much quicker and you feel that the car is 'powerful'.
Now, as the car moves forward, it is covering distance. The force you are applying, mulitplied by the distance moved, gives you the 'work done'. Work done divided by time taken, gives you power. So if you have high power, you can cover a fixed distance in a shorter time than a car with low power. In the context of the giant/superman example, your power is your ability to maintain that twisting force to move the car forward, in a given timespan.