What is Torque?

[Homie]

What exactly is torque? Also, some people say alot of torque is good, some say its bad?

[XiaoMing]

Torque is never bad.

Torque is the instantaneous twisting force your engine outputs to move your car. But since your tires act on the pavement in one vectoral direction, you can just think of it as force. Torque is the force your engine provides.

F = force
M = Mass
A = Acceleration
F=MA
or
A=F/M

Therefore, you will accelerate faster if you have more force (torque) or less mass (weight reduction).

[Homie]

But if you have too much woulndt your car start to peel out?
Also, in fast&the furious(iknow BS movie) he says something about having too much torq that causes the chassy(i think) to bend.

[Wolf]

If you have a LOT of torque, then yes, you can twist the chassis. (Ever notice how on fast cars, when they launch, only one side of the front end starts to lift? That's from the torque. If you don't have a strong chassis, this twisting action can permanently twist your frame. If you've ever seen the videos of Darius' 240Z w/ a supercharged LS1, I've been told that he's on his 2nd or 3rd car because the engine twisted the chassis on the earlier ones.)

Besides twisting the chassis and breaking your tranny/driveshaft/u-joints/rearend, there is no downside to too much torque. If you're spinning the tires on launch, you're can always buy larger slicks, or just launch at a lower rpm.

Torque is the real power that an engine produces, the horsepower rating is a number derived from the torque rating @ a certain rpm. Without torque, you can't have horsepower.