Thursday, Aug 15, 2013 at 23:05
The modern petrol engines with variable valve timeing and fuel injection are very torquey, and both power and torqure are immediate where the turbo diesels may lag a bit.
Even normally aspirated diesels do not respond to throttle application like petrol motors do.
the other thing is that there is a far greater rev range in petrol motors.
my 3 liter diesel may pull down to idle, but it redlines at about 4000.....the petrol motor in my other hilux will rev right out to 6000.
this means when ya come to a
hill you will be doing less gear changes in a petrol car and you wont be stuck right up in the rev range of a diesel but not be able to pick the next gear.
Make no mistake power is power and it is power that shifts weight.
It is not possible to make a direct comparison between petrol and diesel engines, because they are driven differently.
When you drive a diesel hard you play to the torque, reving harder does not achieve much because maximum power is usually
well below maximum revs...and in general there is a quite narrow band where maximum power occurs, in my diesel hilux this is less than 1000 revs and there is very little over lap in gears.....so to keep it cooking you have to be between 2500 and 3500, there is about 1000 revs between gears at shift point so to keep on the power your shifts have to be spot on.
If pulling hard up a
hill with a load on, looking for an upshift you may not pull the next gear with sufficient..confidence so ya stuck in whatever gear you where in.
Where with a petrol motor you keep the revs up because that is where the power is maximum power is usually near maximum revs...power progresses with engine speed and you have a tractable range of 3000 to 4000 revs..thus you have very wide gearshift windows.
I think you will find most of the medium sized SUVs will actually be a step backward from the magna in power.
cheers
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