What scotty was trying to point out is,,yes it takes longer to heat up 3qts of oil compared to 1qt of oil,,but it also takes longer to cool 3qts of oil compared to 1 qt of oil,,So yes it takes a longer amount of time to heat up,,but takes an equal amount of longer time to cool off, the oil has a certain amount of cooling properties but its primary funtion is to lubricate the rotating engine parts,The oil needs to come up to proper operating temp to lubricate and do its job,the cooling fans function is to cool the engine,,so if the fan is not doing its job the entire Volume of oil will heat up slower but will also cool slower and maintain heat longer than a lesser volume of oil,Once its too hot then you have alot of over heated oil to cool,,but even if you maintain oil temp the oil is not going to keep the engine from over heating and say driving a valve seat deeper into the hot soft aluminum head or have the seat fall out,,the Air from the Fan is what the engine needs to run at the proper temp,you have oil in the cases and below the piston,,and you have oil in the valve covers lubing the moving parts and providing a certain amount of cooling, BUT you dont have oil on top of the piston,on the cylinder head chamber,the intake or exhaust runners,,there is no oil in the hotest part of the engine,,the head/cylinder fins and fan is what cools the hotest part,not the oil, the baffels under the cylinders are there to circulate the cooling air around the cylinders to keep them from being cool on top and Hot on bottom and then warping out of round,the stock fan set up works on presure and volume of air controled by the engine rpm,at low rpm the engine is not producing as much heat and the fan spins slower and requires less HP to provide the presure and volume of air need to cool,At higher RPMs the engine is producing more Heat and the fan spins faster needing more HP to provide more air presure and volume to cool the engines hotter operating temp, so going up a long hill in 4th gear the engine is struggeling to pull the tall gear and the engine gets hot because its making heat due to the HP needed to pull the high gear at a lower RPM and the fan is not spinning fast enough to cool the engine and it starts pinging,,so you downshift to 3rd and now the engine rpm increases as well as the fan speed/presure/volume providing more cooling + the engine can pull the hill in the lower gear more easily and the engine cools off and stops pinging,,it takes the same amount of HP to pull the hill in 4th as it does in 3rd,,but in 3rd the fan does its job better and its easyer on the engine, at 3000 rpm the fan needs say 7 Hp to cool,,at 6000 rpm the fan takes lets say 25 hp to cool,,the fan speed changes in unison with engine speed providing the proper amount of air presure to cool at that given engine speed,,The problem I see with an electric fan is,,the fan speed/air presure/volume is a constant and does not change with the engines needs/requirements,,even with a properly working stock system you can over heat on a hot day going up a long hill if your not careful,,,so to conclude my long winded Post!
IMO adding more oil is not going help cool the engine,,its just going to take a bit longer to heat the oil,,kinda the same as adding more air is not going to lubricate your rod bearings,,each system has its own job to do,,adding oil will not make up the difference of a weak fan,,BUT I do wish you Luck Herb and the fact your giving it a go and doing something different is Realy Cool! And I hope you can come up with an electric fan set up that works good and you can drive anywhere anytime and then we can say Finaly someone has found the magic combination and soon we will all be running them!
If someone Can make a system that works,,I would own one!
in. Certainly it would take longer to heat a larger volume of oil on a stove, given the constant of a fixed BTU rating on the burners limiting the heat transfer rate to the oil. But if you consider your engine to be the "stove", taking longer to heat a larger volume of oil to the DESIRED operating temperature would be a negative thing for an engine, because it would take more time to get the larger volume of oil up to the desired operating temperature. But once it is heated, most of the heat stays in the fluid, whether it is five quarts or seven quarts, unless you give the oil a way to exchange the heat to the outside air. In a racing engine, a deeper, baffled sump and a longer oil pickup that sits near the bottom of the sump might be desirable to prevent the oil pickup from being uncovered by the oil sloshing around during hard cornering, braking and acceleration. With a poorly designed oil pan and pickup, the racing speed G-forces can starve the engine for oil. But the deep sump and larger oil volume has nothing to do with cooling the engine. If you want to ask the oil to take on a secondary job of cooling, as well as lubricating the engine, you have to give it a way to transfer the engine heat to the outside air, just as you do in a water-cooled engine by giving it a radiator and fan. That is the function of the cooling fins and posts in the Otto Parts oil pan and valve covers, and it is the function of the Corvair oil cooler and possibly an auxiliary oil cooler. The added radiating surfaces in the oil pan, valve covers, and oil cooler(s), plus the required air flow, allows heat to be extracted from the oil and moved to the airflow. An oil cooler without good airflow is useless, which is why it is important to keep dirt and leaves out of the Corvair oil cooler fins. That is also why adding a secondary racing oil cooler is no good if it is not properly placed where it will receive good airflow.
1966 Corvair Corsa Convertible
dave & brad
the older oils cant come close to the newer oils / newer api rating. this is true for both non syn or syn.
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