How Car Companies Lie About Power For The Better😉 | Explained Ep.30 

Honda owners are gonna swear their car is underrated by 100HP after this.

BMW was known to test the net HP with everything on. Highest A/C setting, all lights, stereo, seat and wheel heaters etc. They just were being honest about true net HP.

“Useless information on crash test ratings and fuel consumption” ….so much truth in this statement 😂

Japanese car companies: I lied about the horsepower, it can go much faster American car companies: haha more horsepower = more $

In Europe in many Countries you pay Tax per Hp so it absolutly makes sense to rate the car at "lower Power"

Don't forget the 2003/04 Terminator Cobra. Rated at 390 hp/390 Tq at the crank. People routinely got closer to 400 at the wheels.

If I can fund a coffee or two for making these videos I will. Thank you for sharing the history of these vehicles, manufacturers and engines. Your channel is incredible and deserves a lot more than I can give.

Great video. According to Dinan's website, they've tested the B58 at 353 HP. BMW rates them at 322.

Other things that effect 0-60 and quarter mile times is final drive and gearing, so a car could be quicker, but need to shift sooner and therefore be slower to 60 or 1/4 mile. Cars can get heavier and throw off the increased horsepower. EE did a nice video comparing the lighter Integra to the M2 where the thrust feels similar, but the FWD limits the 0-60 compared to the M2, despite it having more power.

Some of us with grey hair may disagree with crash testing and efficiency being useless, but its still another great video. Love how you combine history and engineering. 👍

Your videos, especially the motion graphics/animations, just keep getting better. Outstanding.

There was actually quite a few differences between the US and JDM 2JZ engines resulting in different output. USDM version has steel turbos instead of ceramic, bigger injectors, big cams, and afm/maf + map instead of just map. Not to say it wasn't underrated in Japan, probably pushing closer to 300, but still fairly major differences.

The GTR is a perfect example… rated 600 hp for the nismo but real hp 590 whp…. 911 turbos are grossly underrated….

How is this channel not blown up popular. Really well put together videos. Just wanted to drop some respect in your comments section.

Also keep in mind, the 72 4-4-2 Olds was rated at 360 hp by factory. Later people diagnosed it with over 410 hp, a friend bought one to rebuild for 9k in bad shape, it started after a bit of work, because he wanted an before and after we went to the nearest dyno and it run 386 at the wheels. Also, muscle cars got sold with open exhausts, for exsample the chrysler 300 is even in germany legal with a straightpipe. Exhaust manifolds were race oriented, not as clunky as the one u showed but we got the drift. Something to note is the Carb aswell, new rebuilds use better carbs, newer and advanced ones, which obviously make more power due to being more efficient. Great and awesome video, Keep it on!

Amazing animations and I especially love the 80's vibe that you create in your videos. Absolute ❤ from India.

M3 comp makes 545 to the wheels, and BMW says 503 lmao.

Love how you break down the math and tuning and the controversial subjects of horsepower and torque!

Fun fact that most people don’t know: four years after the embarrassment of the 1999 cobra, the same engine was used in the 2003 Mach 1. This time around Ford learned from their mistake. The Mach 1 made MORE hp and trq while also being rated LESS than the 99 cobra. In reality it made 332hp and 355trq while being rated at 305hp and 320trq.

My man 50grand! Your channel is the shiznizzle! Don't stop makin these videos for all us true gear heads! Straight up!!!

The quality of these videos is unmatched in the car sphere of youtube, good stuff

2:59 Finally someone answered this properly. So many people come up with ridiculous answers to a nonsensical question. This is the only correct answer.

Simply put from an old school dude. Horsepower = how Fast you hit the wall. Torque = how far you push it, once you come in contact with it.

It's not just about the hp. It's also the rest of the drivetrain. The transmission, rear end, etc. I've seen 700 hp old Camaro's run 12's and I've seen 500 hp old Camaro's run 10s, because of the differences in gearing and the transmission they had installed . These newer cars have 8 to 10 gear auto trans, so you can put a high rear-end ratio (3.90+) in them and they'll both accelerate hard and cruise like a kitten on the interstate.

the quality of the fuel used is also very important, especially on new turbo engine (high compression) manufacturer use the worst fuel possible for the rating so if you buy an M3 in a country with low octane fuel, you still have 550hp .... but with high octane fuel you have more power ...

The LS is such a legend. My first v8 engine was the ls3. What a monster, that car scared me at first. I was just after tired of being slow and driving Japanese “sports” cars. I’ll never go back in a performance car, daily is different. Just another world, sound, and smiles. Screw mpg.

I remember how my jaw dropped when I learned the factory rating for 429 Boss Mustang. 375 HP feels awfully low for a Hemi engine even bigger than that of the Mopar 426 Hemi, but then I learned that it might have been a tax thing and the potential for 500 HP was most definitely there

Every time I watch a video on this channel, I just want to go out and make LS sounds in my Corvette 😂

Seems that recently, mainstream turbocharged consumer cars have underrated HP numbers

It’s good that you gave credit to Buick for their turbo 3.8 in the 80s, but Ford and Mopar ware also running turbos on some of their performance cars as well. In the Ford camp there was the SVO Mustang and Thunderbird Supercoupe. Mother Mopar was slapping a turbo on a lot of their lineup. Even their Caravan was available with a turbo

Thank you for putting all this time into these videos! I can’t get enough from 337speed!

As always, another good production. Always like how you put in clips of dyno tests, burnouts and all the like. Really gives it that extra flare.

The early 135i's had secondary cats in the midpipes. Later they got rid of them in production (maybe after/because of the N55 engine change). They also don't come with a boost gauge. (Clever) Supposedly the stock N54 is 300hp running 8.8psi of boost. I took off the stock catted midpipes for some Berk midpipes and installed a manual boost gauge to discover the stock engine making almost 13psi, no tuning.

With so many cars available on the market, it's not really that hard to figure out a route of an avarage petrol head guy: you start with something like Golf GTI, proceed to M3, proceed to 911/McLaren if really rich. Nurburgring is a live proof of that. Great video as always! 337 Speed delivering best explanations on worlds top automotive insdustry! Keep the quality coming!

Dude, I've been following you for a while and your stuff consistently gets better and better. Keep up the good work!

Im telling you bro this channel will be amazing to have in spanish. Super great content and info.

Honestly, I'd rather have automakers underrate their performance characteristics than overrate them. It also gives car journalists something to test and verify. For enthusiasts, they can potentially obtain better value through purchase/insurance simply by being in the know. In the 90s, a "276 hp" car was cheaper to insure than a 300+ hp one, and the $25k+ premium on a Corvette over a Camaro with the same engine was a value consideration.

Wasn't the 03-04 cobra doing the underrating too? I remember hearing that they made more than what the factory said.

The B58 is an incredible engine. Delivers great power and when driven conservatively I routinely get 35+ mpg in the highway.

I just want to say GoD bless you Sir for taking the time to put these AMAZING videos together, you are among a dying breed of OG’s who master their craft and put in the time to study, understand and impart knowledge 📚. You are 🔥

This is one of my most fav channels by far! , not just entertainment but i gain so much more knowledge than before

The production value and the explanations are just brilliant!

Sucks that literally none of this would matter to the future electric “car guys”

Another thing to know here is that the engines always have manufacturing tolerances, which can affect the performance during the production run of the car, so to take the eventual power losses into account, all car manufacturers (at least from what I know) lower the measured power and torque by a bit, and some manufacturers might subtract quite a generous amount of power, just to be shure. Also: drivetrain losses are much lower nowadays than 40 years ago, so I highly doubt any modern drivetrain eats 15% of the Power.

Genuinely some of the best videos on yt💯🔥

There was in some countries some optimization with the taxes, especially horspower taxes. Manufacturers advertised the maximum hp they could to stay on a specific category, while providing 10-20% more, to advertise better perfomance figures than the competition.

Lying about horsepower and torque in the positive is not good for insurance because it hits you in the negative. Years back the underrated engine power for that specific reason

Jesus Christ..the amount of research that goes into these videos...combined with all the clips used. I can't even.

As a 340i (B58!) owner, it was clear the advertised 355hp (MPPSK, 3600 lbs) was a wheel figure rather than crank figure. I had a 438hp tuned s4 (3850lbs) prior and moving to the alleged 355hp 340i felt like very little drop in performance and I tested 60-130 and 0-60 times (dragy) which backed that up. S4 with TCU/ECU tune for 93 made 438hp crank. It ran 12.06@114 and did 60-140 in 12.1 with a 0-60 of 4 seconds (3.7 with rollout). Now only 250lbs lighter and supposedly down 83 hp to the S4, stock MPPSK 340i ran 12.7@110, 4.9s 0-60 (RWD on run flats lol) and 13.2 for 60-130 first tries. According to the 60-130 and the trap speeds (which give the best indication of power being made) the 340i was pushing very high 300s not 355. More like 380-390 crank. Needless to say I was going to tune past that anyways but it’s great to get that extra value!

As a truck driver i definitely love torque

We need a big block Chevy video

The look and disbelief on the face of my friend losing in his dads 99 corvette when I smoked him in my 98 Z will always be in my memory.

Yet another reason why I love this channel!

Insurance purposes….just like back in the muscle car hey days!!

Great video. Great playlist! Thank you so much for this playlist! ❤

euro cars being secretly overpowered is probably because in some countries you pay more insurance for more powerful cars.

Keep it up! Love these types of videos and helping all Car lovers understand their engines and drivetrains, their elevation and climate enviroment play a factor in their car's respective performance! Particularly depending in Manufacturer!

I just wanted to say you have a really great channel. I’ve learned a lot and it’s represented so well and simple and with wisdom. Salute.

Magnificent video as always sir🍷🗿🤌

Very intresting video, like always.

Thank you for another fantastic video. The 1999 mustang cobra lower output was due to a manufacturing defect when machining the intake leaving behind excess aluminum and not being to spec. Supposedly same with the cat and mufflers creating too much backptessure. Choking the engine out on both ends 🫁🤷‍♂️

the zf6hp21 transmission in the bmws, eats horspower numbers, but the newer 8hp is actually a planetary gearset, 4 actual gears, 2 gears engaged at all times in diff combinations to = 8 gears. the converter in the 8hp locks up 100% so theres no loss throught the gearbox, thats actually the reason why bmws are coming with more power. the n54s only the manuals were putting down 320-330whp , the automatics were barely making 305whp due to the 6hp. the dct and manual cars are always higher whp than rated because they rate the automatics and use those numbers for the EPA .

Great video, very informative. I like torque over HP, but I’m a truck guy.

Man Knows His Stuff! subbed. 🛠 👊😎

Dope channel. This is why RU-vid is so great.

I worked at OPEL GM in Vienna, Audi in Neckarsulm, Volvo in Gent, VW in Bratislawa, Magna in Graz ( Supra, G-Klasse ) and every car manufactor has a HP tolerance between 5%-10%. You can take 2 engines in a row, directly from the production line, and the HP numbers could be different.

Great video. I had a 1999 Cobra which I promptly (6 months later) traded for a 2000 SS Camaro, both mentioned in the video. As advertised, the Cobra was 320 HP and Camaro 325. I always knew there was a much larger disparity between them, but until now just summed that up on the Camaro's additional torque numbers. One being a bit overrated and one being underrated, that makes a whole lot of sense to me.

I love how almost every Dyno video you featured was stuff just blowing up!

Seeing a VQ as the heartbreaker… I was dying 😂

favorite car content on youtube, love the aesthetic and explanations.

Wow, totally new to this channel, was expecting nuanced errors, but you basically nailed it on every point. Well done! As an aside - modern transmissions/drivelines are very efficient compared to the old 15/20 rule. Modern FWD auto with torque converter and planetary gears can exceed 90% efficiency (

Why is this so misunderstood? HP is not LB/Ft x RPM That is the formula to calculate HP, ... HP is Force Times distance over time, which calculates how much work can be done. You cannot calculate how much work can be done with torque because it is a static / 2 dimensional force - it is simply force x distance... and nothing more. A good example is a bicycle, a mountain bike usually has 5/1 to 3/1 gear multiplication, the average man weights 170 lbs and is able to peddle with a force equal to that, the average crank length on a bicycle peddle is 170mm to 175mm (6 to 7 inches) if you take 170 pounds of force and multiply that by crank length of 7 inches 170x7/12th(58%) you get 99.11 lbft of torque, now multiplying that by the average bicycles gear reduction of say 4/1 you get 396 lbft of torque...... for a vehicle with total weight of 190 pounds for bike and rider....which is a torque to weight ratio higher than any internal combustion vehicle by a factor of 20 to 1.... yet even the slowest of cars is faster than any bicycle because the work of horsepower. Torque is meaningless...

It also depends on which type/brand of dynamometer is used for the testing. Just as different brands of radar guns will give different readings for the same baseball pitches, so will different dynos give varying readings for the same engines.

Great videos bro keep them coming

Opening up with the GT500 was 🔥

Back with another BANGER!

Simple reason: American brands like to brag Whilst eu delivers

"Useless information like crash tests" I love that my reckless ass agreed completely with no cognitive dissonance.

Props for going into details about not only why there are different power measurements and statements, but also the technologies and laws involved that ultimately shape these things. As other people might've already pointed out here, the reason for german car brands to lower advertized numbers is also guided by tax laws on engine size and power output, so selling them officially with less power than the cars actually have is perfectly reasonable to have the buyer pay a bit less taxes on an already costly endavour. Our government (I'm from Germany) tries to enforce very "green" politics on the country and making it harder for brands to develop high-output cars with higher emission ratings, especially since almost every european car brand cheated on these ratings a few years ago. I put green in q marks cuz gov trying to promote electric cars and cutting down on gas-fueled ones is stupid from an environmental standpoint as well as that it's equally bad for their reputation. Good that we have a really strong car lobby here that provides a lion share of yearly taxes to the country, so the government really doesn't have that much freedom to do what they want, which is a good thing imho.

Awesome explanation! Today I learned something new.

I have been driving a 2001 Olds Aurora 4.0 since 2000. It's rated ar 250 HP @5600 RPM. I use only 93, and on that octane it feels like MUCH more than 250HP.

Ahhh you played a clip of my favorite ridiculous car commercial - the Twin. Turbos. Kick. In. 300zx. Had one of those in pearl white with t tops in 2005. Was so cool.

Always learning so much!

Wow! Great job on the research and presentation! This is what car RU-vid should be!

My Nissan Z is said to have 400 Crank HP but it dynoed at 380wheel 😎

Another great video, like usual!

Imagine cars being limited to only 280 horsepower yet motorcycles where limited to 186mph/ 300kph. I always found it so weird that a 200hp bike with a governor was sensible enough but a 300 horsepower car wasn't.

Great video as always, i try to share them to as many people as possible to up your counts,keep it up

The other thing about horsepower and torque is that they're only telling you the number at the peak of the curves. A car could have godawful torque & power curves (cough turbos cough) could perform a lot worse than one with a better curve but lower peak hp+torque.

Great job as always. Love the way way you break things down and explain them.

VW definitely follows that trend of underrating HP numbers. A mk 7 GTI is rated at 220 HP, but they can make as much as 230 at the wheels

Great production as always

The 1970 chevelle ss 454 was one of those that was underrated. That 454 in 1970 was a monster.

This was the case for Fords 03-04 Mach 1. They rated them at 305 but bone stock would put 280hp to the wheels. The 98 Cobra rated 315hp only put down about 265-270.

Your videos are awesome as always. Extremely professional and very enjoyable to watch and listen. 🤟🤟🤟

these videos are FIRE! SO much to learn here!

"Rated power" is a whole different world from "maximum output". Those who are familiar with industrial engines, know this. Most often, industrial engines are "rated" at a given duty cycle... beit contant output, 80%, 60%, etc.... while their maximum output is often far greater, if their induction/fuel system is capable of delivering the necessary air/fuel volume.

What's more important, horsepower or torque, is actually fairly easily explained. In a perfect world where gearing allows the car to always be in peak power, horsepower is the ONLY thing that matters, power to weight is power to weight. The reason there is a confusion with torque is because transmissions are not perfect, they fall out of the power band normally during a shift, especially back in the day when they only had three speeds and "horsepower sells cars torque wins races" was a common saying. But these days with six speed manuals, 10-speed automatics, and much more efficient drive trains. Torque really is mattering less and less because of the ability to keep the car in the power band.

Holy crap your videos are great. Keep up the great work.

428 Cobra Jet in the ‘67-70 Shelby GT500. Some say the power rating is underrated from the factory. Factory rating is 335hp, actual hp might be something like 400hp.