Would anyone be able to point me in the right direction to be able to run multiple instances of tor for a multi core cpu.
Tor version is 2.9.8 on Ubuntu 16.04.
The tor package from deb.torproject.org ships a little script that helps you with that:
tor-instance-create
https://gitweb.torproject.org/debian/tor.git/tree/debian/tor-instance-create...
torrc files will be located under /etc/tor/instances/<instance-name>/torrc
and you can use the usual systemctl commands to manage them systemctl start tor@<instance-name>
Or if you are planing to run more than one server or want to use the relatively new OfflineMaster key feature without all the manual steps you can take a look at ansible to manage your tor instances.