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Interesting Question 700 1988

There's a lot more to factor into this besides HP and weight. For one thing, her vehicle is FWD and depending on the weight distribution of the car, she may not even be able to plant all that power down solid on the ground.... Our cars are RWD, and at only about 114HP, you won't spin your tires at all even if you floor it from a standstill.

Do you both have automatics? If so, your torque converter may (and probably does) have a different stall speed than hers. I believe our torque converters stall at 2K RPM. I have no idea what the Jetta's is.

If manual, then it would depend on how well the two of you launch.

What speed are you accelerating to? This is where HP and torque comes into play. Aye Roll mentioned torque as being related to acceleration, but that is only part of the story. HP = (torque * RPM) / 5252... not that this formula really means anything to you or us for that matter. However, given two cars with equal torque rating but one has more horsepower, they will probably both launch at about the same rate. The car with more horsepower, however, will begin to pull away from the other car. That is why often time people will say that horsepower matters for top speed.

Personally, I would put my money on the Jetta assuming you have the B230F 114HP engine. If you have the B234F 16-valve engine, then it might be different. Plus, let's not forget the fact that her Jetta is newer than yours. Age does matter, no matter how well cared for your car is.

edit: here ya go... HP and torque explanation with example: http://vettenet.org/torquehp.html
--
Kenric Tam
1990 Volvo 740 base sedan (B230F)
My Volvo 'Project'






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