HP and Weight, this might be a little confusing Options

[celicarocker]

this whole theory is going off something i remember someone saying before. not sure of the exact numbers, but it was something like "every 125lbs you take out adds 4hp" or something like that. anyway, the point is there is a direct correlation between weight and HP.

now onto my main point. people talk stuff like "car A will beat car B becuase they both have the same HP, but car A is lighter" so if car B was reduced to the weight of car A, it would be faster? like if car A is 1900lbs and 150hp, and car B is 2700lbs and 150hp, wouldnt they both be the same speed? its like that old trick question "which would fall faster, a pound of bricks or a pound of feathers" where they'd both fall the same speed. so wouldnt a 1900lb car with 150hp go as fast as a 2700lb car with 150hp?

does anybody get what im trying to say?

[celicaST]

first off, you need to understand that the physics involved in the dynamics of a car are very complicated and can not effectively be conveyed as simple ideas to determine how fast a car is. all other things being equal though a lighter car will be quicker than a heavier car because power is the rate at which energy is transfered into/out of a system. so the more power the car has, the quicker the car can gain kinetic energy, which is 1/2*m*v^2. so given the same power for the same amount of time, obviously the lighter car will have been accelerated to a higher velocity. again, this is way over simplified and there are many other factors involved, but thats the general idea for you.