This oil lark is ludicrous! The only way that the different oils can affect things is by the amount that the engine is 'dragged away' by the high viscosity (stickiness of the oil). BUT....
What is being implied is that some considerable amount of the engine power is being transferred to the oil. Everyone knows (or should know) that the energy being 'lost' from the engine cannot just disappear. It has to be transferred to something else. One option would be for the 'lost' power to be transferred to more noise..... are you really claiming that ordinary oil makes the engine considerably more noisy???
Another way would be for the lost energy to be transferred to more light being produced by the engine with 'thick' oil...... really??? Does you engine oil glow significantly.....? (see later, it would be the equivalent 'shine' of a 300 watt buld!)
What would happen, in reality, would that the lost energy would be transferred to more HEAT! You are claiming that, with thicker oil, the engine gets hotter.... How much hotter? Let's see how much hotter!
Ok.... lets assume that thick oil is costing you 500 rpm from your motor.... Well, try using thin oil, find the maximum revs and now apply the brakes enough to cause your engine to drop it's max revs by 500... now hold the brake at that EXACT pressure and do 5 laps like that..... How hot is your brake disk now???? I suspect it will be a nice bright glowing red!
If the engine oil made THAT much difference, then that is EXACTLY how much energy you are proposing is being transferred to thick oil....... I suspect your oil would evaporate in 20 laps or would start to smoke nicely!
Yes.... thin oil DOES make a difference.... but the amount is minuscule: certainly not 500 rpm's worth!
For precision, 1Kilo Watt of energy is about 1.34bhp. If your motor is losing (let's guess) 0.5bhp to the think oil, then you engine oil is having the about 300 watts of energy added to it by using thick oil. That would be the equivalent heat of about 1/3rd of a one bar electric fire being added....... are you REALLY claiming that? That's a LOT of extra heat being added in a 3 hour race!
Ian
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