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I recently added the horsepower xgauge to my SGII, and I was amazed at just how LITTLE HP is needed to push the car (which weighs a reasonable 2300 pounds) along at a reasonable pace. My car is rated at 106 HP at 6000 RPM, and while I have never driven it above 4500 RPM, I assumed I would easily be using around 50hp just cruising along at 60mph or so.

To my surprise, letting the car move on the Automatic drive "crawl", I was maxing 3.5 HP. Speeding up at around 26 TPS/1.5 GPH, I was using around 22HP. Just to make sure I wasn't reading it wrong, I pushed it a bit above 3500 RPM (45TPS/2.45GPH)...only 35HP used! I really was sceptical, so I floored it while in 2nd gear and going steeply uphill and saw the numbers jump to the 60's while doing about 4200 rpm...so I would assume I could hit 106 if I really wanted to.

This got me thinking: do we really need all that damn HP to move along a car? I mean, typical "muscle" cars have around 200-400 HP, but one of the best known fast cars in Europe, the Lotus Elise, can easily beat its American counterparts with only about 180HP...and IT is a sport's car. The first-gen VW Lupo, although a diesel, ran on about 65hp...and quite well, too!

If I can use only 60hp while going WOT, do American cars really need much, much more? Is the whole horsepower fixation that average americans have really that well founded?

Part of our problem is lack of anticipatory focus. I can't actually recall the last time I went WOT since May of this year. Partially because I'm going slower (and therefore not changing lanes) and partially because I'm paying more attention to the traffic around me. If you leave a proper buffer, and slow down, there's really no need for that much HP. The only time I use even a modicum of the power available to the engine is when I'm merging onto the highway.

How do you add hp as an xgauge? Is it listed on the SGII manual? Will this work on my 05 Elantra?

Thanks
Shaughn

The scan gauge website has a bunch of Xgauge codes listed on the website. If I remember right I had to wander around a bit before I found the right page. There was also a video on Youtube with some guy showing how to add the HP gauge to his SG

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1WgEGAe5Y0

As to the HP gauge, I tried it on my F150 and the highest the number ever got was about 3.5. Apparently it works with some vehicles and not with others.

kryten

look up Ford codes... they are not the same for HP. I have both HP and Torque Xgauges working in TorqueNada, and they do seem to be pretty close: ie near WOT HP will show itself up around 110, torque will get up near 120-125. I don't use these much, but it is interesting to see how much HP is being used at a steady cruise...

13-14 hp at 55 mph in my insight. what does your yaris show at 55?

13-14 hp at 55 mph in my insight. what does your yaris show at 55?

I almost never hit 55 unless I am pulsing, but at around 50mph I am using about 22 hp...ridiculous, right?