froggy47

I thought this was settled, but I saw a NASCAR Performance episode (insert NASCAR jokes here) about cooling the Cup cars where Bootie Barker (crew chief #13 GEICO Toyota) said to the audience that he would run anti freeze if he could (Rules prevent) because it would "COOL BETTER".

Now this guy should know, so is straight water (or add a dash of water wetter) better or is "some" percent of water/anitfreeze better?

State your source/support for your answer. I think/hear/my barber said is not really substantive support.

Go.

Bill Dearborn

I know that antifreeze doesn't transfer heat as well as water. A long time ago I had a VW Diesel that I changed the antifreeze in. After the change the heater didn't work as well in our 0 degree winter weather and I took the car in to see what was wrong. Diesel's don't produce much heat when idling or running at slow speeds so the first thing the mechanic did was check the coolant mixture. It turned out I had too high of a percentage of antifreeze in the mix (which I thought was a good thing). When he drained some out and added a couple quarts of water the heater started working much better. He told me he saw it all the time and that it didn't make that much difference on gasoline engined vehicles due to the higher waste heat output at idle and slow speeds.

Bill

AU N EGL

Water and two bottles of water wetter.

Anti freeze would be good, if you knew for certain that you would never dump the coolant on the track.

Everett Ogilvie

Antifreeze depresses the freezing point which is why we put it in our street cars, but it also elevates the boiling point by 30 to 40 degrees over straight water, which is probably why Bootie made his statement.

Because I don't know - does water wetter raise the boiling point of water? If so, I might consider going to water and water wetter for my driving events.

OK, so I looked into water wetter - they even say it does not really elevate the boiling point over pure water, so you are relying on the pressurized system to do that. At 15psi watter wetter and water had a boiling point of 250 and a 50/50 glycol mix has a boiling point of 265, so 15 degrees difference. All their claims are around better heat transfer (as opposed to raising the boiling point). If their claims are accurate it might be worth a try.

AU N EGL

Water Wetter is more of a lubricant

95jersey

Couple of things to consider. Have you ever seen or felt anti-freeze in your hand or on the track surface? It is as slippery or more so than oil. Which is why many race orgs do not want it in cars running in their series.

I would be concerned about the following:

1) On top of preventing the water from freezing, I understand it provides anti-corrosive properties. Could running strait water increase the cycle of corrosions in the cooling system?

2) It also acts as a lubricant. Could removing anti-freeze have consequences on a street car's water pump? I thought I heard anti-freeze acts as a lubricant extending life of water pumps.

Those would be my concerns. I think it is pretty common knoweldge strait water works better.

Good time for someone from Dewitts or Ron Davis to step in.

rasrboy

Thats been my mixture in all my race cars for years.

Z11409

http://www.redlineoil.com/content/fi...ech%20Info.pdf

froggy47

Thanks all, especially Z11409.

I "guess" ol Bootie was talking about boiling point, not heat transfer.

B505

agreed water + 2 bottles of water wetter.

I just changed my cooling system fluids on my bmw which I added a temp guage and water wetter almost acts like magic. I thought I could get away with adding only one bottle, but temps were high on my non-mechanical fan equipped car. Adding the 2nd bottle settled operating temps to the advertised 202 F .

I stand behind the product and will be throwing it in the vette soon!

Bills Z06

I agree on the use of a water wetter product. I personally use the Amsoil product called "Coolant Boost".

http://www.amsoil.com/StoreFront/rdcb.aspx

ScaryFast

Water wetter is basically soap. The intent is to reduce the surface tension of the water which provides more surface contact with the metal in your motor and radiator.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_film

In general, it's all about heat transfer, boiling point is less important since your intent is to keep the motor cool. You need to get the heat into the water from the block and out of the water from the air blowing through the radiator. Different motors like different temps, but most of us have stock"ish" Corvette motors, so street temps are the target. I don't like to see more than 240°, but it happens on occasion. My motor wouldn't like higher temps than that, so raising the boiling point isn't a priority for me.

WW also acts as a lubricant, but this stuff is much cheaper. I use both...depends on what I have on hand.

http://www.fastenal.com/web/products...5100691&ucst=t

Quite frankly, I've never seen this 10 - 20° drop in water temps on track from WW, but others have so I won't argue.

The other way to prevent corrosion is distilled water, which is why you see most of the aftermarket radiator companies recommend it. The minerals which crystallize in your cooling system are "distilled" out in the boiling process, leaving less to gum up your system.

ScaryFast

I got interested and did some more digging:

Coolant and heat transfer agent
The major use of ethylene glycol is as a medium for convective heat transfer in, for example, automobiles and liquid cooled computers. Ethylene glycol is also commonly used in chilled water air conditioning systems that place either the chiller or air handlers outside, or systems that must cool below the freezing temperature of water.

Pure ethylene glycol has a specific heat capacity about one half that of water. So, while providing freeze protection and an increased boiling point, ethylene glycol lowers the specific heat capacity of water mixtures relative to pure water. A 50/50 mix by mass has a specific heat capacity of about 0.75 BTU/lb F, thus requiring increased flow rates in same system comparisons with water. Additionally, the increase in boiling point over pure water inhibits nucleate boiling on heat transfer surfaces thus reducing heat transfer efficiency in some cases, such as gasoline engine cylinder walls. Therefore, pure ethylene glycol should not be used as an engine coolant in most cases.

Man, this stuff is terrible! Why do we use it again in our cooling systems?

froggy47

One size fits all. Cars parked outside in North Dakota winters have the same % (from the factory) as mine parked in a garage in San Diego.

ScaryFast

Well that, and it tastes good.

travisnd

Distilled water and 2 bottles of water wetter here

0Tom@Dewitt

Water alone will remove more heat however it does not provide the necessary inhibitors to protect aluminum radiators. It is an absolute must to use distilled water to eliminate minerals and/or chemicals that will attack the aluminum. If you must run straight water for track regulation, then I would say you better add a couple bottles of WW to protect the aluminum. My preference is to run a simple pre-mixed solution of 50/50. Many companies are selling anti-freeze with distilled water already added, so you don't have to measure or worry about what to add later. Straight anti-freeze will absolutely run 10-20 degrees hotter than a 50/50 mix and provide no advantage to the average driver or weekend warrior.

C66 Racing

Looks like you found what you needed, but for what it is worth, at the track I run a 25% mixture of water and antifreeze with one bottle of the new AMSOIL Dominator Coolant Boost (Product Code RDCBCN). Ran that combo at VIR last weekend with day time temps in the mid to upper 70s and coolant temp was below 210F the whole weekend (with DRM radiator).

I use some antifreeze as my car sometimes sees cold weather and I think the antifreeze (and probably the coolant boost) provide some degree of corrosion protection.