Update on my cooling "problem"
Thread Starter
Drifting
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 1,411
Likes: 2
From: St. Louis, Missouri
Update on my cooling "problem"
Last week, I posted a thread about my car running over 220 degrees.
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/zero...188785#3188785
Last year, I replaced the coolant. A few months later, I added a small container of stop leak. Last weekend, I decided to drain the coolant and flush the radiator. When I did, the coolant was brown (mostly because of the stop leak).
I flushed the radiator and replaced the coolant with straight water. I took the car out for a 45 minute drive, city and highway. I could not get the temperature to go over 160 degrees (granted though, it was only about an 80 degree day).
Later, I was on the crapper reading Car and Driver. Ironically Patrick Bedard wrote an editorial about anti-freeze:
http://www.caranddriver.com/xp/Caran...mns_bedard.xml
"All the antifreezes I know have one side effect that's troubling for a few of our special cars. Ethylene glycol, which makes up 96 percent of what's in the bottle, has about half the heat-transfer capability of plain water. So when you mix antifreeze and water in the recommended 50-50 proportions, you give up a quarter of your system's cooling capacity. No problem for new cars; they're engineered with capacity to spare. But I remember British roadsters of the '50s and '60s that would boil on the streets of New York in the summer, and street rods are notorious for overheating. You could cure the cooling problems of those cars by circulating plain water through the system."
This article confirmed some things I suspected all along. Antifreeze provides freezing protection, corrosion protection and overheating protection by raising the boiling point of straight water. It is not as efficient at conducting heat as water is.
So, I think I'm either going to (1) run a weaker mix of antifreeze (I don't drive the car in the winter and may garage never gets anywhere near 32 degrees) OR (2) run straight water if I can find some sort of corrosion inhibitor for cooling systems.
My $.02, your mileage may vary.
[Modified by Neo Fender, 9:23 AM 6/17/2002]
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/zero...188785#3188785
Last year, I replaced the coolant. A few months later, I added a small container of stop leak. Last weekend, I decided to drain the coolant and flush the radiator. When I did, the coolant was brown (mostly because of the stop leak).
I flushed the radiator and replaced the coolant with straight water. I took the car out for a 45 minute drive, city and highway. I could not get the temperature to go over 160 degrees (granted though, it was only about an 80 degree day).
Later, I was on the crapper reading Car and Driver. Ironically Patrick Bedard wrote an editorial about anti-freeze:
http://www.caranddriver.com/xp/Caran...mns_bedard.xml
"All the antifreezes I know have one side effect that's troubling for a few of our special cars. Ethylene glycol, which makes up 96 percent of what's in the bottle, has about half the heat-transfer capability of plain water. So when you mix antifreeze and water in the recommended 50-50 proportions, you give up a quarter of your system's cooling capacity. No problem for new cars; they're engineered with capacity to spare. But I remember British roadsters of the '50s and '60s that would boil on the streets of New York in the summer, and street rods are notorious for overheating. You could cure the cooling problems of those cars by circulating plain water through the system."
This article confirmed some things I suspected all along. Antifreeze provides freezing protection, corrosion protection and overheating protection by raising the boiling point of straight water. It is not as efficient at conducting heat as water is.
So, I think I'm either going to (1) run a weaker mix of antifreeze (I don't drive the car in the winter and may garage never gets anywhere near 32 degrees) OR (2) run straight water if I can find some sort of corrosion inhibitor for cooling systems.
My $.02, your mileage may vary.
[Modified by Neo Fender, 9:23 AM 6/17/2002]
Le Mans Master
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 7,456
Likes: 2
From: Coming home from Luckenbach Texas
Re: Update on my cooling "problem" (Neo Fender)
I went over and read Bedard's column. You should have noted the section on the next page:
Zerex Racing Super Coolant sounds ideal. It was developed for attack boats used by Navy Seals. They must operate in tropical waters too warm to give sufficient engine cooling when you add in the inefficiency of ethylene glycol. Super Coolant contains inhibitors only?special antifoaming agents and protection during boiling?Turcotte says, and it's compatible with aluminum, iron, and other materials common in older cars. Imagine boosting the effectiveness of your cooling system 25 percent simply by changing the radiator fluid. For Zerex Racing Super Coolant, call 800-TEAMVAL.
That's the ticket! :D
Zerex Racing Super Coolant sounds ideal. It was developed for attack boats used by Navy Seals. They must operate in tropical waters too warm to give sufficient engine cooling when you add in the inefficiency of ethylene glycol. Super Coolant contains inhibitors only?special antifoaming agents and protection during boiling?Turcotte says, and it's compatible with aluminum, iron, and other materials common in older cars. Imagine boosting the effectiveness of your cooling system 25 percent simply by changing the radiator fluid. For Zerex Racing Super Coolant, call 800-TEAMVAL.
That's the ticket! :D
Thread Starter
Drifting
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 1,411
Likes: 2
From: St. Louis, Missouri
Re: Update on my cooling "problem" (page62)
I went over and read Bedard's column. You should have noted the section on the next page:
Zerex Racing Super Coolant sounds ideal. It was developed for attack boats used by Navy Seals. They must operate in tropical waters too warm to give sufficient engine cooling when you add in the inefficiency of ethylene glycol. Super Coolant contains inhibitors only?special antifoaming agents and protection during boiling?Turcotte says, and it's compatible with aluminum, iron, and other materials common in older cars. Imagine boosting the effectiveness of your cooling system 25 percent simply by changing the radiator fluid. For Zerex Racing Super Coolant, call 800-TEAMVAL.
That's the ticket! :D
Zerex Racing Super Coolant sounds ideal. It was developed for attack boats used by Navy Seals. They must operate in tropical waters too warm to give sufficient engine cooling when you add in the inefficiency of ethylene glycol. Super Coolant contains inhibitors only?special antifoaming agents and protection during boiling?Turcotte says, and it's compatible with aluminum, iron, and other materials common in older cars. Imagine boosting the effectiveness of your cooling system 25 percent simply by changing the radiator fluid. For Zerex Racing Super Coolant, call 800-TEAMVAL.
That's the ticket! :D
I read it in the paper version of C and D.
