A German tuning outfit called PP-Performance has put the 2012 BMW M5 on a Maha dyno, and the numbers returned were 444 horsepower at the wheel, 553 at the engine, and a “corrected number” of 574 hp. Max torque came in at 532 pound-feet (721 Newton/meters).
Compare those figures to the official numbers of 560 horses and 502 lb-ft. If the 444 number is accurate, then no matter how you slice it on horsepower – whether you use the numbers from BMW or PP-P’s figures – you’re losing around 20 percent from the engine to the wheels. However, adjusting for driveline and twin-turbo losses, that puts things right about where they should be. The 30-lb-ft surplus of torque, on the other hand, is the kind of surplus no one would complain about – again, assuming it’s accurate.
autoblog
