Water wetter?

[Bertfatal]

Red Line make a cooling system additive called Wetter Water. It is supposed to improve the efficiency of your cooling system. Does anyone know if it works?

[k80rum]

Yup, it certainly seems to. I've not tried it in the 7 but I used to put some in an old MGB ages back after upgraditis meant i upgraded the engine. Knocked the temperature down by about 5 deg C if I remember..

 

Hope this helps

 

Darren E

K80RUM Superlight R #54

 

 

[JampJ]

Only £8 from SC Parts Group. 01293 547841

Cheers J&J

 

 

[susser]

This could be a gimmick. Any polar surface active agent "surfactant" will increase the wetting capability of water,( by reducing surface tension). Chances are that your coolant already has one in. I'm pretty sure the Organic Acid Technology coolant such as Comma XTream Red already has it. If it doesn't then almost any detergent will "make the water wetter".

Susser (1/2 🙆🏻 chemist)

[se7enmad]

Used it a long time ago in competition.

Made no difference whatsoever, flushed it out after a little while.

 

Maybe the product has been improved on since then though? Or maybe our temperatures were just too high for it to work.

 

Antonella

1998 Caterham Classic

my site heremore photos here

[k80rum]

good points - any effect Water Wetter might have is probably strongly determined by what coolant you're running. I dont remember what mine was, but i'm sure it was the cheapest tat I could find at the time 😬

 

Darren E

K80RUM Superlight R #54

 

 

[se7enmad]

Maybe you're right. In my case I've always thrown in the best quality coolant I could find.

 

Antonella

1998 Caterham Classic

my site heremore photos here

[Bob Corb]

Made no difference at all, but then again my cars pretty much always run at the thermostat operating temperature set point and has used premium coolant.

 

BC

[Alex Wong1697456877]

It took 10 deg off my track running water temp on a hot day. I don't use it routinely but keep a bottle in my track day spares kit in case of a hot day in a high rev circuit or a traffic jam in a heatwave. (I always use it for the endurance rally's - the temps creep up most when you're in a traffic jam in a hot place!)

 

So called "advanced" coolants do seem to be better and maybe water wetter will have less effect with these. - On that note, what concentration do most people go for? Running temps do seem alot better with more dilute antifreeze but when does corrosion inhibition and lack of antifreeze capability become a concern?

 

Edited by - Alex Wong on 23 May 2005 09:40:59

[susser]

Alex

 

On of the things that affect the ability of a coolant to do it's job is the amount of heat it can carry. This can be described as it's Specific Heat. Ethylene glycol has a lower specific heat than water (4.2kJ/kg/K). Therefore the more antifreeze you put in, the lower the specific heat of your coolant and it then follows, the less capacity it has to a, absorb heat from your engine and b, carry it to your radiator.

That's aside from your comment regarding corrosion resistance. Which is as you say, a seperate Cost/Benefit thing altogether.

Susser (1/2 🙆🏻 Thermodynamicist)