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Understanding Oil Viscosity: Why It Matters for Engine Performance and Protection

When it comes to protecting your engine, oil viscosity is the single most important property of a lubricant. Yet, many enthusiasts and even seasoned mechanics misunderstand what those viscosity numbers on oil bottles—like 10W-30 or 20W-50—really mean.

In this article, Driven Racing Oil’s Lake Speed Jr., a certified lubrication specialist, breaks down what oil viscosity is, how it impacts engine performance, and how to choose the right viscosity grade for your application.

What Is Oil Viscosity?

Viscosity refers to a fluid's resistance to flow. A good way to visualize it is by comparing motor oil to maple syrup: both flow more slowly when cold and more easily when heated. In lubrication, this flow resistance is critical to forming an oil film that protects engine components from wear.

Breaking Down Viscosity Numbers (Like 10W-30)

The numbers you see on a motor oil container (e.g., 10W-30) describe the oil's multi-grade viscosity rating, as defined by SAE J300 standards:

The first number (e.g., 10W) represents the oil’s flow characteristics at cold temperatures. The "W" stands for Winter, not weight.

The second number (e.g., 30) indicates the oil’s viscosity at high operating temperatures.

Multi-grade oils were developed to solve the seasonal limitations of straight-grade oils. For example:

A 10W oil flows well in cold weather, reducing wear during startup.

A 30-grade oil maintains protective film strength at operating temperatures.

A 10W-30 oil combines these benefits, providing better cold-start performance and high-temp protection.

Viscosity Grade vs. Viscosity Index

It’s important to distinguish two related concepts:

1. Viscosity Grade

This is the SAE number (e.g., 30, 50) and represents oil thickness at specific temperatures.

2. Viscosity Index (VI)

This measures how much the oil's viscosity changes with temperature. A higher viscosity index means the oil maintains a more consistent thickness across temperature extremes.

Conventional oils typically have a viscosity index around 100, while synthetic oils generally offer a higher viscosity index of about 150. For even greater stability across temperature ranges, mPAO-based synthetic oils boast a viscosity index approaching 200, making them ideal for high-performance applications.

Choosing the Right Oil Viscosity for Your Engine

Oil temperature plays a major role in selecting the correct oil viscosity grade. Here's how different race engines illustrate that:

NHRA Pro Stock Engine Runs at ~100°F → uses 0W-5

NASCAR Sprint Cup Engine Runs at ~220°F → uses 10W-30

World of Outlaws Sprint Car Runs at ~300°F → uses 15W-50

Your engine's operating oil temperature—not just outside ambient temperature—should guide your viscosity choice.

Why High Viscosity Index Oils Are a Game-Changer

Modern synthetic oils based on mPAO (metallocene polyalphaolefin) technology, like Driven Racing Oil have extremely high viscosity indices, providing:

Improved wear protection

More stable oil film under high loads

Enhanced fuel economy

Increased horsepower output

Driven Racing Oil utilizes this advanced base oil technology in all their synthetic racing and performance oils.

Proven Performance: Driven Racing Oil

While using the Driven Racing Oil system of lubricants, Joe Gibbs Racing won:

✅ Over 8 NASCAR Championships

✅ More than 100 race wins

These results are dyno-tested and race-proven, proving that selecting the right oil viscosity not only protects your engine—it also helps you win.

Final Thoughts on Oil Viscosity

The following is a conversation between myself and artist Martin Soto Climent (Mexico City, 1977) that took place across Skype, email, phone calls and travel together in Northern CA. during the production of the exhibition Many Places at Once for the Wattis Institute (S.F. April 17-July 12, 2014), which I co-curated. A portion of this interview, which investigates the artist's idiosyncratic working method, is published in the exhibition's catalog, and may be downloaded for free, in full, on the Wattis website. Soto Climent currently has a solo exhibition at his Los Angeles gallery Michael Benevento on view through October 31, 2014. 

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The artist’s sketchbook might be thought of as a site of formative aesthetic gestures, of experimentation with line, color, and form. It is a private space for preliminary studies of what might one day become more fully developed paintings, drawings, or installations. Whatever the subject of a sketchbook’s pages, one can expect their rendering to be rough, quick, not fully articulated. As transportable objects, sketchbooks can travel with an artist to various sites of inspiration, and thus function as a space of production exiled from the studio. What might be the significance of a sketchbook, however, when it becomes the primary site of artistic process, replacing the physical site of the studio entirely? Martin Soto Climent (Mexican, born 1977) engages a contemplative artistic process that plays out within the pages of dozens of notebooks he carries in his back pocket. In lieu of a physical studio practice––and using just a pen––the artist reflectively documents the world around him, a process evidenced by the varied markings between the bounds of little black notebooks stacked in a pile on the floor of his room in Mexico City.

The notes and sketches found within the bounds of the artist’s books are where Soto Climent sorts through his own processes; informal sketches, notes, poems, exhibition layouts, and other visual meditations fill their pages. If a small book of blank pages might hold the capacity for storing years of artistic thought and experimentation, what need is there for the physical structure of a studio? No longer an architectural site of production, but a notional one, Soto Climent inhabits his notebooks as wholly and engagingly as the next artist might inhabit his or her fabrication studio.

In his installation There Once Was a Place (mixed media, 2014) for Many Places at Once, Soto Climent attempted to visually parse his own mental map, a gesture that had not yet seen a physical manifestation by the artist. When considering what an artist’s process might actually look like, Soto Climent offers us a diagrammatic attempt at the intimate workings of the artist’s psyche, the notes and momentary glint of inspiration, or perhaps the single line drawing of an un-named man. Pushing his own practice beyond its normal limitations––largely mimicking the approach he takes with his usual source materials––Soto Climent exposes the inner workings of the emotional, intellectual, and creative systems that precede the physical work of art as the audience normally receives it. It is as if years of “studio practice” were recorded onto sheets of paper, and revealed to us through this piece. Except, of course, that this particular practice is not bound by the confines of the studio, and rather advances an individual’s intimate markings that are reflective of his own experience in the world.

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[CH] I know you’ve long given up on the idea of your studio space in the south of Mexico City as the physical site of your production. Given your on-site and often spontaneous working method with everyday objects and materials, has the loss of a traditional studio actually affected your practice at all?

[MSC] I think I spent more time working in the improvised kitchen I used to have than in "the studio." The streets are my working field. It never really made sense for me to have a studio for my work for simple reasons––the first being, I don't really work!  Meaning I don’t produce things. All my pieces are movements or simple gestures that turn the object into something else, but this object can always come back to its original sate, to what it was before. Once the idea is expressed, the objects can turn back into what they were before and essentially disappear. They can be reintegrated into life after living for an instant as art. This process requires a lot of contemplation to understand how can you modify an object without really changing it.

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[CH] And I imagine this contemplation takes place throughout the pages of your notebooks... Does the shift from the physical studio to the interior space of your notebooks more fully reflect your creative process since they can be taken anywhere, and thus free you from the confines of working in only one location? 

[MSC] The notebooks are essential. When projects become more complex than independent and spontaneous gestures involving just one object––an installation for example––it is a more involved process. Each new object I add to the installation affects the others, the extent to which is never evident until the end, when everything is spatially organized around a central concept. I document that process and my thoughts around it in my notebook. It can’t function any other way. My work doesn’t take shape in a studio, but in the moment. 

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[CH] I saw quite a few stacks of them on the floor, but how many notebooks do you think you actually have? 

[MSC] How many? I have…. no idea! When should I start counting?

I guess if I think about my own history I could count them. I started traveling by myself, thinking, moving, and walking. Walking has become another important practice for me for the past fifteen years. When I think about the notebooks I went through during these travels, I guess I have close to fifty. It’s hard to say. Some years I used four notebooks, plus a few sketchbooks, other years just two. Thinking about it now reminds me of the name of one of my past shows, Following the Whisper of my Shadow.  

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[CH] Aside from your process that can be documented in a notebook––or carrying women's stockings with you everywhere––what else does your process entail? How do you come across the materials you engage in your installations?

[MSC] I like to improvise. I feel closer to a Jazz player than a painter who prepares and works for weeks. I like the energy of things when they come fresh to my mind and I don't have time to distort them with rational insecurities.

I’m conscious about what I want to express in my work, but one thing I realize is that mental process alone is not enough to create an art piece that involves many complex human relationships, emotions, fears, desires, existential longing, etc. I’m also very aware about our particular time and moment. That’s why I don't produce things. I don't think we need more stuff, more "garbage" around. And I believe art not only describes our time, it also opens ways to move into the future in a sustainable way.

My method of working is a constant meditation. Everything starts from within, but the moment I find an object that works to express something I’m interested in, I manipulate it almost immediately. If I find an object that makes sense for a specific project, I keep it. If it makes sense to leave it in the street, I leave it there in its manipulated form. And, if it makes sense to turn it back to what it was before and return it to where I found it, I do that too.

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[CH] In what ways has Lulu [a project space co-founded in 2013 with American curator Chris Sharp in Mexico City] shaped your own creative practice? Does it perhaps serve as a space of contemplation much like the studio used to, or is it a separate entity from your own art?

[MSC] Lulu was an excuse to spend more time in Mexico and reconnect with the city and the scene in an active and serious way. It influences my work because it requires a lot of attention, but that was in the beginning. Now I have the feeling it runs by itself. It’s not really linked to my practice, but it is to my life, so it changes things. I love it.

It’s a project where Chris and I can utilize our international network to respond to local conditions. People have recently taken an interest in the art scene in Mexico City, and Lulu is a place where we can show artists who don’t have gallery representation and connect them to a local and international audience at the same time. It’s a place to have conversations, and to make friends, really. 

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[CH] How has the prompt of this commission allowed for a space of self-reflexivity regarding your own artistic process? 

[MSC] This commission is a very specific work because it’s about the process itself. I have to use the process to describe the process, and then present it as a piece. I believe every art piece I do involves all of that, but somehow for this occasion I have to show the backstage of my production, only to discover that there really is no stage at all. Somehow there are still many actors and elements that come into play during my process and here I’ve created a space where all the elements can each play themselves…. it is a great experience. 

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MANY PLACES AT ONCE

April 17-July 12, 2014 / Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts

Featuring works by Martin Soto Climent, Rana Hamadeh, Li Ran, Cinthia Marcelle, William Powhida, Ian Wallace, and Real Time and Space.

Many Places at Once is an exhibition curated by the graduating class of the Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice at California College of the Arts with the support of the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts. The eleven curators are: Kenneth Becker, Patricia Cariño, Marion Cousin, Pierre-François Galpin, Leila Grothe, Callie Humphrey, Danielle Jackson, Marie Martraire, Lauren O’Connell, Marja van der Loo, and Megan Williams.

Decades after the "post-studio" turn announced by Minimalism and Conceptual art in the 1960s, Many Places at Once reconsiders the place of artistic production in our era of creative industries and flexible labor. Featuring new commissions and existing works by seven international artists, the exhibition presents artworks that call attention to the nuanced circumstances that characterize the economic, social, and technological conditions in which artists work today.

The exhibition departs from the performance entitled At Work 1983 by the Vancouver-based artist Ian Wallace (b. 1943, Shoreham, England), in which the artist presented himself in the window of the artist-run Or Gallery in Vancouver, late at night, seated behind a simple desk, engaged in reading, thinking, and drawing. Staging himself before the city’s nightlife as an intellectual worker rather than a paint-spattered bohemian, Wallace embraced the new nature of art as thought over making, while reflecting on his new identity with tongue firmly in cheek. Many Places at Once includes a video of his original performance and large-scale drawings he produced during his tenure in the gallery window. New photographs in Ian Wallace’s Hotel series (1986–ongoing), made for this exhibition, marry photography and painting, and show the temporary “studios” that are the hotel rooms he occupies as he travels.

Alongside Wallace are recent works by other artists that embody different notions of the place of artistic production. Cinthia Marcelle (b. 1974, Belo Horizonte, Brazil) produces drawings while attending art events such as artists’ talks. Martin Soto Climent (b. 1977, Mexico City) makes the pages of his journals and notebooks his site of production. Rana Hamadeh (b. 1983, Beirut, Lebanon) creates sculptural cabinets and vitrines where her archives are displayed, which she animates through performances. William Powhida (b. 1976, New York) generates diagrammatic drawings that reflect critically on the art world and the network it represents. Through videos and performances, Li Ran (b. 1986, Hubei, China) uses mimicry, satire, and irony to challenge the representation of artists' identity and work. In dialogue with the above, the shared studios of Oakland-based Real Time and Space (established in 2011) evidence a continuation of the artist’s studio as a physical location, with the added dimension of group self-organization.

Taken individually, each contemporary work presents a site: a hotel, a notebook, an archive, a network, an event, or a theatrical stage. Together they constitute the “many places”—physical and conceptual—that “at once” constitute a reimagined artist’s studio.

An accompanying publication will provide an opportunity for further engagement with each featured practice through interviews with the artists, focusing on their processes and places of production.

The exhibition’s programming will engage the Bay Area arts and education communities to develop dialogues on the pressing issues facing artists and creative professionals, with several conversations and public roundtables. Many Places at Once will also feature performances or events by Rana Hamadeh, Li Ran, and members of Real Time and Space. For a schedule of these programs, please visit the Wattis calendar.

An accompanying publication will provide an opportunity for further engagement with each featured practice through interviews with the artists, focusing on their processes and places of production. Download publication here.

About CCA’s Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice Founded in 2003, CCA’s Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice offers an expanded perspective on curating contemporary art and culture. Alongside traditional forms of exhibition making, this two-year master’s degree program emphasizes the momentous impact over the last half-century of artist-led initiatives, public art projects, site-specific commissions, and other experimental endeavors that take place beyond the confines of established venues. It is distinguished by an international, interdisciplinary perspective, and it reflects San Francisco’s unique location and cultural history by placing a particular importance on the study of curatorial and artistic practices in Asia and Latin America. For more information, visit cca.edu/curatorial-practice.