Oil isn’t exactly the most sexy thing to delve into when it comes to technical topics. It spends its entire out of sight, with only a brief appearance when it’s being poured from container to sump usually via a funnel so as not to waste any of the hugely expensive liquid. At the cheaper end of the market, expect to pay around a tenner per litre for some four-stroke engine oil, while at the other end, £50 for a litre of the stuff is not uncommon. It gets a hard life and has a lot of things to look after each time you use your bike. It lubricates and helps to cool the mechanical components of the engine, whether it’s the crankshaft, the bores or the valve train, then there’s the clutch and the gearbox which share the same oil. It’s got to do this when the engine is cold just as well as when it’s red hot otherwise the consequences are usually terminal and therefore expensive. Put simply, oil is the life cycle only component on your bike without which your bike’s engine would eat itself piece by piece until it ceased to function. Without it, your bike will not work, or at least it won’t work for very long, and when it stops working, more often than not it will never work again.
As well as preserving the life of your bike, it’s curious to note that for the first time that I can remember, a bike manufacturer is quoting power figures for one of its models with and without a special oil in it. The 2023 Ducati Panigale V4R has three quoted power figures; 218bhp in full Euro5 spec, 237bhp with a race exhaust, and 240.5bhp with the race exhaust AND a specially developed custom engine oil.
It seems that in the pursuit of performance and/or bragging rights, oil is now one of the tools available to engine designers which can yield more power.
There are other tricks that manufacturers can use oil to theirprevious one, but with less volume.
