[302 LX Eric]

Two things here:

1) A bigger oil pan will essentially 'move' oil away from the crank. Therefore at higer rpms when the crank is really spinning, it is hitting less oil - less resistance. That's one way to look at it.

2) Oil control (baffles, etc) work by keeping the oil from getting sucked up by the crank and therefore pushing oil up on the sides of the block at high rpms. Without an oil control plate/baffle the fast spinning crank creates a 'parting of the Red Sea' effect on the oil. This all takes energy - possibly 10 hp on a decent performance motor.

Basically, you want to adequately oil all of the engine, but without over doing it. The more the oil 'is in the way' the more horsepower it is robbing. Kind of a fine line, but hopefully you get the idea.

There was a post a while back on reducing the amount of oil you put into an engine to have similar effects, but I wouldn't recommend going too low.

E