Engine oil temperature and engine performance

[rob]

Hi, I would like to ask how engine oil temperature effecs engine performance in therms of horsepower.Does it have big effect?
Thanks

[WhiteBlue]

I cannot quantify it for you but higher temps will make the oil thinner and reduce friction. So going higher with temp should produce more horses. On the other side at one point the lubricating film will fail and the engine will go bang. So teams will want to run as high as the oil supplier allows them to run. The trick on the technical side is to have a very thin oil that still maintains separation between the moving parts.

[GrndLkNatv]

Greatest oil read on the web!!!


http://www.supramania.com/aehaas/

[tuj]

I wonder if the teams have a control that can affect the oil temperature, either by perhaps varying how much is sent to the oil cooler, or indirectly through engine mappings. I wonder if what happened to Ferrari was that they were running too aggressive on temps when today was a bit hotter than yesterday. When Massa started backing off, was it a rev-limit program? Because it looked like he was staying on his normal technique, so perhaps just using a different setting, and then another one later as he gave up more time, perhaps trying to cool the oil.

[alex1015]

Greatest oil read on the web!!!


http://www.supramania.com/aehaas/

Great read for sure. I'm just a bit too ignorant for sure to know exactly how accurate he is. Additionally, some of his statements seem to be conclusions drawn from concepts rather than ideas backed by facts. I'm not disputing anything in particular, I just don't have enough information.

He's an interesting fellow though and has some great cars!

[riff_raff]

While engine oil is primarily thought of as a lubricant, in reality its most important function is as a coolant. F1 engines use journal bearings for the crank and conrods. The oil mass flow required by those journal bearings is dictated totally by the bearing's cooling requirements. Having too high an oil-in temp to those bearings would cause the bearing materials to overheat and fail structurally.

An engine oil can be formulated to have low viscosity at relatively low temperatures. So getting the oil hot solely to reduce its viscosity is not necessary. The benefit of higher oil (and coolant) temps is that it reduces the heat transfer losses in the engine. And of course the other benefit of higher oil-out temps is that it reduces the size, weight and drag losses incurred by the oil heat exchanger.