Oil
The oiling system will not add or subtract horsepower from the engine, unless the engine blows up from a lack of adequate oil pressure, in which case you will have zero horsepower. Careful design is needed to make sure the engine won't explode in the middle of a corner.
System design
A majority of FSAE engines use motorcycle engines. One of the key differences between the engine being used as designed compared to in a car is how the oil system functions.
Wet Sump
In a stock motorcycle engine, the oil is stored in the oil pan as an internal oil pan. This is called a “wet sump” oil system. On a motorcycle, this works during hard lateral turns because the motorcycle itself leans into the turn, allowing the oil pickup to remain submerged during the turn. In a four wheeled vehicle, the engine cannot tilt into the turn, and the oil is forced against the side of the pan, away from the oil pickup. This leads to oil starvation, which leads to low oil pressure. Wet sump systems can be successfully used in FSAE cars, but significant alterations are usually needed from the stock oiling system, especially if the team also wants to shorten the oil pan for packaging reasons. Redesigning the oil pan from scratch is common. Baffles can be added to decrease starvation in corners. To significantly shorten the height of the oil pan, the oil pickup will probably also need to be shortened. Overfilling the engine is also possible, as long as the crankshaft doesn't hit the oil and whip it into a froth.
Oil Accumulator
One middle ground between a wet sump and a dry sump is a wet sump system with an oil accumulator (often called an accusump). The accusump is an external oil reservoir system that sends oil to the engine when oil pressure goes below a certain threshold. When the driver leaves the corner, the oil returns to the reservoir. This way, the engine is guaranteed a certain oil pressure, until the oil reservoir runs empty, which can happen in long sweeping corners. Accusumps are more common on road racing cars, where corners can be much longer than on autocross tracks.
Dry Sump
In a dry sump oil system, the oil for the engine is stored in an external reservoir. The oil that collects at the bottom of the engine is quickly removed by a scavenging pump, and routed into the external reservoir from which the supplies for the engine and the turbocharger are drawn. A common industry solution, a dry sump is often used in very high performance engines for a variety of reasons, including reducing the load on the engine by pumping the oil electrically, or reducing the frictional work the engine has to overcome by reducing windage. A key advantage of a dry sump for FSAE is that the pan thickness can be much smaller due to the external reservoir replacing the wet sump. This in one dramatic swoop eliminates both the oil starvation problem during cornering and allows for reduced center of gravity by bringing the engine which is exceptionally heavy closer to the ground. A dry sump is common in FSAE for forced induction applications as high lateral accelerations reached in the FSAE competition greatly increase the chances of temporary oil starvation of the turbocharger[1].
Oiling for Turbochargers
The engine has a robust internal oil management and supply system, so a brief or inconsistent oil supply will have limited consequences for the engine itself. However, the turbocharger is spinning at well over 200,000 rpm, meaning even a small perturbation in oil supply will spell disaster for the bearing system. [citation needed, our source this in our senior proj was alumni communications]
