After sitting for up to a week, yes, running synthetic allows the genset to accept load in less than 4 seconds from the time that the start signal is sent. It used to take several seconds longer with standard oil. During very low ambient temperatures, it would wait at 1200 RPMs for far to long with zero oil pressure for me to be comfortable.
Upon shutdown and restart a few minutes later it would come up to full power just as fast on standard oil, but that's AFTER the oil has been drawn up in to the oil pump and filled the engine's oil system. 20 minutes after it’s shutdown, one can still hear the oil dripping out of the engine in to the pan if you stand beside it.
Heating the oil pan with an external magnet mounted oil heater was not recommended. I couldn’t get a direct answer, other than “oil getting too warm.” Even with a small 100 watt unit stuck to a 40 quart pan, they said it would void the warranty. I suspect due to the possibility of slowly driving moisture out of the oil. The only place for it to go after leaving the oil pan would be on the machined parts of the engine. Remember, this thing spends all its time shut down. It just sits waiting for the start signal. In addition to the block heater, it has two 250 watt nested generator winding anti-condensation heaters, and a 250 watt anti condensation switch gear heater. It definitely uses more kilowatt hours running the heaters than it will ever produce in operation.
Upon shutdown and restart a few minutes later it would come up to full power just as fast on standard oil, but that's AFTER the oil has been drawn up in to the oil pump and filled the engine's oil system. 20 minutes after it’s shutdown, one can still hear the oil dripping out of the engine in to the pan if you stand beside it.
Heating the oil pan with an external magnet mounted oil heater was not recommended. I couldn’t get a direct answer, other than “oil getting too warm.” Even with a small 100 watt unit stuck to a 40 quart pan, they said it would void the warranty. I suspect due to the possibility of slowly driving moisture out of the oil. The only place for it to go after leaving the oil pan would be on the machined parts of the engine. Remember, this thing spends all its time shut down. It just sits waiting for the start signal. In addition to the block heater, it has two 250 watt nested generator winding anti-condensation heaters, and a 250 watt anti condensation switch gear heater. It definitely uses more kilowatt hours running the heaters than it will ever produce in operation.
