Foot Pounds vs. Pound Feet…Which Is Correct?

Pat Topolinski goes over one of the great debates: foot pounds verse pound feet. So which one is correct? Of course this is referreing to torque. The most commonly used ways in the automotive industry are tighetning fasteners and measuring engine torque output.

To go back to basics, what is torque? It is the measured amount of rotational force exerted on a given length bar from a central point. Take the length of the bar and multiply the amount of weight on the end of the bar and you get your torque.

In America, torque wrenches are marked with foot pound values meanwhile SAE (or The Engineering Society For Advancing Mobility Land Sea Air And Space) International technical standards boards standard uses the expression pound foot. When it gets down to physics, it’s essentially the same thing but what’s your preferance?