History Barney Navarro Defines Horsepower

The explanation of the relationship of hp to torque is excellent. I often wonder how much of the early speed equipment was successfully designed by the seat of the pants, not Navarro's clearly.

 

Barney is a good writer as well as horsepower maker...I wasn't aware of that until reading this article. He was quite an inventor and not just hotrod parts...Here's some Barney info from the Roadkill.com web site.....

"In the ’60s he campaigned a twin-turbo Rambler I-6 at the Indy 500—nuts even for the time—and he designed a line of aluminum intake manifolds and cylinder heads for flathead Fords (see NavarroEngineering.com) and concrete-cutting equipment that’s still in use. He raced a Hemi-powered boat for Henry Kaiser and later developed a heart and lung pump for Kaiser hospitals. Navarro never stopped thinking."

 

Here's another good Barney Navarro article. He was quite a person....

https://ahrf.com/pioneers/barney-navarro

The article concludes with....
(Mike) Herman summed the man up saying, "All the way to the end, his favorite quote was, 'There's nothing more fun than learning.' When he was in the hospital, he asked me for the instruction booklet for an MSD electronic ignition unit because he wanted to read up on it."

 

Thanks for posting - Navarro explained horsepower in print and in action

 

I wish I could blow it up and read it clearly.

I'd also be interested in his take on following the trail of TQ through the car's engine and at the tire's contact patch. IE, If we have 500 lbft of TQ, a 10" converter, a 2.46 1st gear, a 4.11 rear gear ratio and a 30" tall tire, how much TQ makes it to the ground at launch? Would you believe about 3800 lbft? Clearly there's no way 500 lbs dropped on a 12" bar could even begin to make the car launch the way we know it would given that combo, right? Try tracking it through a snowmobile. I never could develop the mechanical advantage all that track on the ground has as part of a math formula. This is always good stuff. Thanks Chief...

 

I was able to blow it up and read it clearly, on a computer. The trick is to "view image" when it's sized to fit on the screen, then once you are viewing the image, you can zoom to full resolution. At least that's how it works on my browser (firefox).Or you can save the images, and use your favorite image viewing software to view them at the appropriate size.


The last page is tricky, though...

 

hope Ryan doesn't get too pissed at me for doing this....here's the article in easy to read bits.

 

Thanks Squirrel, that makes it much easier on these old eyes.
Jim

 

Thanks also squirrel.


Back to the topic, these are the core basics of making power or efficiency. Basics never lie or let you down. Again, good stuff...

 

And the old saying -

Horse Power is how "hard" you hit the wall.
Torque is how far you go "thru" the wall.

Mike

 

A great read. What I love about about physics is that the rules remain the same over time and are valid to anybody. Plus nobody can lie about them. Some try to, but without success.

 

Thank you for allowing old farts with bad eyes to help understand horsepower and torque.