Design Philosophy Question / Large oil sumps v. coolers

["McCarty, Richard" <RMcCarty@domain.elided>]

Hello All -
I was thinking about the 7 qt. oil sump in my GTV the other day and it got
me wondering about the pros and cons of using such a large sump and oil
capacity. The finned hammerhead sump sure is neat looking and having to put
in 7 qts of 20w-50 at oil changes sounds impressive, but the downside is it
takes 20-30 mins of driving for the oil to reach operating temp ( I don't
have an oil temp gauge, the 20-30 min figure is a guess based on the oil
pressure at idle ). So here are my questions:

1) Does the engine need all 7 qts to prevent the sump from getting dry
during hard driving ?

2) Or is the extra oil capacity to help the sump act as an oil cooler ?

3) Wouldn't make more sense ( if #1 is not true ) to fit a smaller sump for
faster warm ups and an external thermostatically controlled oil cooler ? I
can't imagine that economics has anything to do with it, those beautiful Al
sumps can't be cheap to make...

Peace,
Rich M
72 GTV
Early 60s Ducati narrow case project ( anyone got any Mark III parts? )

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