Horsepower calculators can help you figure out how much horsepower to reach a certain top speed figure with your car. However, before we get into calculating the amount of horsepower you need to reach a certain top speed goal, let us first look into some of the factors affecting your car or vehicle’s top speed.

In general, top speed is physically a balance point between all of the forces acting on your car. When the total sum of the forces propelling the car forward, are exactly equal to the total sum of the forces holding it back, the car can no longer increase its velocity and reaches a steady state top speed.

In doing so, we have broken down the top speed equation into two primary factors which are:

Force: Represented in horsepower

Resistance: Represented in drag

Breaking it down even further:

The factors affecting how much force your car has behind it are related to:

* The total amount of raw horsepower you have to work with
* The final drive gearing of your vehicle which combines your transmission gear ratio, your differential final drive ratio, and your wheel and tire package diameter Read the rest of this entry »