How to Calculate the Horsepower of a Chevy 350
by Catherine Lovering
In its simplest terms, a vehicle's horsepower is an estimate of the vehicle's capacity to do work. Your Chevy 350's owner's manual should include its horsepower in its specifications. However, if this information is missing or you would like to calculate the horsepower manually, you can use a simple formula that takes into account the vehicle's weight and speed. Note that it is not recommended that you test the power of a vehicle or its engine by doing anything unsafe with your vehicle. Use all information that you already know about the Chevy 350, and refer to your owner's manual frequently.
Step 1
Write down the speed of your vehicle, in miles per hour. Since this will change depending on how fast you are driving, your horsepower will also change. It is not recommended you drive as fast as possible in order to establish how fast your car can go, since this would be unsafe.
Step 2
Divide the speed of your vehicle by 234.
Step 3
Take the resulting figure and cube it, meaning you would times it by itself twice. For example, if you established your vehicle's speed was 58.5 miles per hour, and you divided it by 234, the resulting figure would be 0.25. 0.25 cubed would be 0.25 x 0.25 x 0.25 = 0.015625.
Step 4
Multiply the resulting figure by the weight of your vehicle, in pounds. The resulting figure is the vehicle's horsepower.
References
Tips
- If you know the current, efficiency and voltage of your Chevy 350 engine, you can easily calculate its horsepower by multiplying all three figures together, and then dividing the result by 746.
Things You'll Need
- Pen and paper
- Owner's manual for Chevy 350
- Calculator
Writer Bio
Catherine Lovering has written about business, tax, careers and pets since 2006. Lovering holds a B.A. (political science), LL.B. (law) and LL.L. (civil law).
