curious about torque

ok, since our cars are such torque beats, ive always wondered about all cars.... what makes a car have so much or so little torque? i mean all cars use the same principle... cylinders fire, pistons move.... and so on. im sure it's just a combo of things but i still dont see if all engines have the same basic things how there are such different numbers. does torque have anythign to do witht he firing order? ive seen a diagram for the SC's and it goes from front left to front right to middle left to middle right and so on, would it matter if it was opposite starting from back? like i said, im sure it's just abunch of things combined for different cars, but what makes it so high (315-330) on the SC? that's amazing.
-Damon

Well, a lot of torque is based on the stroke of the pistons. Not nesseccarily the bore or anything, but the stroke. Combined with foreced induction, the large stroke of the 3.8 V6 is quite potent. Also, another thing to look at is the rotational mass the motor must spin. The greater rotational mass the motor has to spin (pulleys, driveline, blower, flywheel) the more torque it produces. (If it is capable of spinning them, that is.)