How to Determine How Much Horsepower Your Car Has

By eHow Cars Editor

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Horsepower is not easily calculated, but online calculators can get you close.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Step1

Horsepower is a measure of output: one horsepower is the amount of power required to lift 33 thousand pounds, one foot off the ground, in one minute. It is defined by a formula: load times feet per minute, divided by 33,000.

Step2

If you know these numbers, you can plug these into the formula and calculate your horsepower.

Step3

If you do not, it is probably easiest to calculate your horsepower using a horsepower calculator. Find one by typing in the phrase "horsepower calculator" into a search engine like Google or Yahoo!.

Tips & Warnings

Manuals for your car will also list the horsepower for your engine. Horse power may fall as your car ages.

Comments

Anonymous said

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on 9/14/2006 Every garage which issues state vehicle emission tests in MA, NY, CA and many other states has a dynamometer used in testing emission output during the portion of EPA-derived variable-load simulated 'city' driving cycle. If they aren't too busy (try going in the middle of the month), and their software allows, they might enjoy doing a quick 'pedal to the metal' test for you for a small fee.