The pro's use ceramic bearings. However, they're also spending thousands and thousands of dollars. The question isn't "do they work," the question is "do they work better than other things you could spend $400 on when you're on a $1k budget.
Reducing friction in the bearings means less heat generated (yes, that's what happens to wasted energy, almost always it's turned into heat). The gains will be progressively better the faster the bearing is spinning, so 4hp at what speed is the real question.
Reducing rotating mass (i.e., super light wheels, lightened rotors, etc) tends to show the best gains in rate of change situations--better braking, better accelleration. Same with lightening non-rotating parts (carbon bodywork, aluminium subframe, and so on), but for top speed where you've got a good bit of room to work with not so much, as the problem is generally drag from wind. Anything to give yourself a smaller head-on area will be helpful, such as lowering, removing mirrors, that sort of thing, (good body position!).
Running a little extra air pressure in the tires will help reduce deformation of the tire, making it take longer to get up to temp (becuase less engergy is being spent on flexing the tire). Think about pushing a bike around with a flat tire, and how much work it is, the same is true in the other direction. Also a little more air presents a smaller contact patch to the ground, again because the tire is unable to flex as much and is basically a round profile at the ground.
Sounds like a fun project, gluck!
