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Using the best coolant?

Dennis H said:
OK, how can you survive in Arizona without ac? Also, my BB seems unaffected by ac operation. Higher ambient temperatures will affect operating temps, but running ac on the big block just does not put enough load or strain on cooling. If it does, something else is going on. I don’t have one of those sensors that kicks up idle rpm when compressor runs. Not needed.
Click to expand...

Dennis, With your EFI, the computer automatically maintains your preset idle RPM, with AC on or off. No need for an idle solenoid, like you said.
 
My El Camino's SBC has a Sanden compressor and it doesn't tax it enough to need an idle kick-up solenoid.
 
themechanic said:
Can you just add water if you blow a hose or have a big leak or overheat on the road?
Click to expand...

biomedtechguy said:
I think so, and it boils out later.
Click to expand...
I was checking out the waterless stuff awhile back and IIRC it was VERY IMPORTANT to make sure ALL water was out of system.
Now I need to research that again...
My car is running 'hotter' than I am used to so exploring options also.
I opted out of the waterless because you weren't supposed to mix it with water, I thought at the time.
Edit: I read that it wants less than 3% water, if between 3-5% the corrective action is to drain 1/2 & fill with more Evans. If not it lowers the boiling point. I guess you could probably fill with water to get home from the 'breakdown' but then would have to repeat installation process.
 
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RJRENTON said:
I'm not sure where the gospel number for coolant temp of 180° F - 200° F became the "not to exceed" number? It must be one the "they said" laws.....just like "how high is up" or "why is there air". Something that is accepted without substantiation or proof.....
Bob Renton
Click to expand...
How hot 'is' too hot? Whatever temp it boils over at?
I am really interested in this conversation.
 
I can't believe Evans is still around ! They tried to convince the liquid cooled aviation world that they were the best thing since sliced bread, some 20 years ago, and I know NOBODY that runs that **** anymore.
 
I see advantages to it, like no rusting or oxidation, because it eliminates water. Also a BIG difference is with the waterless Evans, the system isn't under constant fairly high pressure, and that has to have some benefits in reducing or eliminating wear, tear, and damage that would be pressure related.
Now I was concerned about it running warmer than a typical water/antifreeze based system, the cost, and the need for a very water free system for it to be introduced to.
On the subject of overheating, we picked up our 65 GTO today, that a "referred home based" mechanic has been working on for a couple of months. Dakota Digital VHX gauges, Wraptor serpentine belt and accessories system, and Vintage Air too.
One of the 2 Cold Case electric fans went out in their "2 fan and aluminum shroud" system they sold me. I can't blame the fan yet, but I don't know why it died, but it's definitely dead. I got the GTO radiator (and I bought one for my 440+6bbl Roadrunner to replace the 26" factory radiator) from Cold Case and once the Wraptor was installed, it pushed everything far enough forward towards the radiator that the factory mechanical fan and shroud had to be replaced.
There are a number of problems that unfortunately I didn't discover until (my wife) drove her GTO home, with me following.
Long story short, not only did one of the fans go out, but the DD water temperature gauge claimed it was running HOT, like WAY hot. I don't believe it, because at 295° the pressure relief spring in the cap on the radiator should have been forced up and open to relieve pressure, but that didn't happen. I think the temp gauge isn't programmed properly, and since we also RAN OUT OF GAS, I know the fuel gauge is NOT programmed correctly!
 
RJRENTON said:
Ron,
Out of curiosity, how much compression ratio did you build into the engine? Higher compression ratios usually cause the coolant to absorb more heat. Did you use the stock Mopar water pump or an aftermarket pump (Flowcooler, Edlebrock, etc). Contrary to what you may have heard or have been told, coolant circulating velocity and gallons per minute, are the key factor in efficient heat trsnsfer....the faster it circulates the more heat is transferred. The specific heat characteristics of the coolant is a major factor in its ability to absorb and release heat, with plain water being the best. System pressure determines the ultimate boiling point with every pound pressure increases the boiling point 3°F. With a 16# cap and a 50% coolant concentration the boiling point is 260°F. Then the Evans Coolant boys will argue that's why their's is the best product.
I'm not sure where the gospel number for coolant temp of 180° F - 200° F became the "not to exceed" number? It must be one the "they said" laws.....just like "how high is up" or "why is there air". Something that is accepted without substantiation or proof.....
Glad to hear you got your problem fixed.
Bob Renton
Click to expand...

Bob, I like your post and agree with most of it. Question though. As compression increases, efficiency increases. This means more of the energy in the fuel goes to power and less to heat. What’s the mechanism that would drive more heat in the coolant when less total heat is available?

Certainly higher comp ratio engines tend to have bigger cams and that would drive heat up but from a 1:1 comparison I’m not seeing it.
 
Ranger16 said:
That sounds a lot like "soft water" to me. Is that stuff any different than distilled water?
Click to expand...

As Bob states, there’s a reasonable difference between soft water and distilled. There’s much less between deionized water and distilled. Soft water comes from a self refreshing doohickey in your house that starts out looking like a DI resin bed but uses salt to refresh and you never really get rid of the salt. -as described by Bob- The DI bed is non-refreshing and doesn’t add salt.

When all is said and done distilled water still conducts electricity a little and has no organic matter (bacteria etc). Deionized water, due to the process, can still have some living stuff in it but won’t conduct electricity. For any purposes related to a car there is little difference. The corrosion inhibitors are “stronger” than that little residual conductivity in the distilled. If you poke a Total Dissolved Solids meter into either, you’ll get zero, compared to your tap water at 30-200ppm.
 
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Nate S said:
Bob, I like your post and agree with most of it. Question though. As compression increases, efficiency increases. This means more of the energy in the fuel goes to power and less to heat. What’s the mechanism that would drive more heat in the coolant when less total heat is available?

Certainly higher comp ratio engines tend to have bigger cams and that would drive heat up but from a 1:1 comparison I’m not seeing it.
Click to expand...
I believe the higher compression ratio increases the combustion efficiency (the conversion of fuel to energy) and as the higher pressure and temperature gas expands, beside pushing the pistons down with greater force, the generated higher temperatures are partially absorbed by the cooling system. Because, the cooling system has limited surface area (radiator), over time, the additional accumulate heat from the generated higher compression, increases. The surface area of the radiator will need to be increased.....the fins/inch, not necessarily the number of tubes and the RATE of exchange (velocity in ft/sec) of the coolant should be increased accordingly to allow the additional heat generated to be dissipated. In a heat exchanger, surface area is key ss well as the specific heat characteristics of the coolant selected. Just my opinion of course.
BOB RENTON
 
RJRENTON said:
I believe the higher compression ratio increases the combustion efficiency (the conversion of fuel to energy) and as the higher pressure and temperature gas expands, beside pushing the pistons down with greater force, the generated higher temperatures are partially absorbed by the cooling system. Because, the cooling system has limited surface area (radiator), over time, the additional accumulate heat from the generated higher compression, increases. The surface area of the radiator will need to be increased.....the fins/inch, not necessarily the number of tubes and the RATE of exchange (velocity in ft/sec) of the coolant should be increased accordingly to allow the additional heat generated to be dissipated. In a heat exchanger, surface area is key ss well as the specific heat characteristics of the coolant selected. Just my opinion of course.
BOB RENTON
Click to expand...

That makes sense when I look at individual pieces. When I back up to the system perspective though, I see less fuel going in (higher efficiency) and therefore less total heat going out. If the burden on the cooling system is greater, then the other heat-out conduit, the exhaust must be notably cooler. I know higher compression is often correlated with lower exhaust temps but they would need to be significantly lower to throw notable extra burden on the cooling system while burning less fuel than the lower compression reference case.
 
I posted earlier in this thread about lowering engine temp and for motors that are appreciably bored out, like mine, you lose metal surface area or thickness, equating to higher temp's. I did a bunch of things as I posted that brought my operating temp down as has been discussed in the posts. Which worked? I think it was the coolant/water ratio change and lower viscosity oil. Am I sure...no; but read a bunch about how these things influence temps. As you know, timing and air/fuel setting also impact engine temps. Cooling system efficiency was another interesting topic as I was ready to order a larger radiator. If the flow of coolant through the radiator is faster than it can support, such as addition of a hi-per pump some think is necessary, this can equate to lower not higher radiator efficiency.
 
Nate S said:
As compression increases, efficiency increases. This means more of the energy in the fuel goes to power and less to heat. What’s the mechanism that would drive more heat in the coolant when less total heat is available?
Click to expand...
Nate S said:
When I back up to the system perspective though, I see less fuel going in (higher efficiency) and therefore less total heat going out.
Click to expand...
I understand why you'd say that, and now I'm going to have a subroutine running until I figure that out. Why does a more powerful engine (higher compression = more power and more heat) produce more heat when it's making more power per revolution?
 
As part of my day job I deal with cooling systems for lasers. The video posted earlier in this thread references anti-corrosion technologies used over the years. This doesn’t have much to do with the actual anti-freeze medium. In most coolants this is either Ethylene Glycol (toxic) or Propylene Glycol (not toxic -main ingredient in vaping liquid). Neither of these have the heat carrying capacity of water but more significantly they have higher viscosities. The higher viscosity makes it harder to pump the same volume. It also makes something called the “Reynolds number” lower. This means the flow is more likely to be laminar instead of turbulent. You can picture that turbulent flow would scrub heat away better.

There are charts available showing the additional flow required to be at the same place with these mixtures compared to water. Ethylene Glycol is better than Propylene Glycol and both require an extra 30ish percent flow to be in the same place. In a car where the flow is fixed it means less cooling capacity.

It’s good to remember that if you use less EG or PG you’ll be getting less corrosion inhibitor too.
 
Nate S said:
That makes sense when I look at individual pieces. When I back up to the system perspective though, I see less fuel going in (higher efficiency) and therefore less total heat going out. If the burden on the cooling system is greater, then the other heat-out conduit, the exhaust must be notably cooler. I know higher compression is often correlated with lower exhaust temps but they would need to be significantly lower to throw notable extra burden on the cooling system while burning less fuel than the lower compression reference case.
Click to expand...

True, to some extent but, is the energy conversion 100%? If the energy expended is not all utilized, where does the un-utilized portion go? Some of it is absorbed as friction (generating heat), pushing the piston down, some of it is absorbed in the cooling system and the balance is discharged as exhaust. In addition to parasitic pumping losses. If the conversion of fuel to energy were 100%, the exhaust temp would be low. But to capture all the energy (or a significant part of it), one would need to recover the heat and energy in the exhaust, as latent heat and velocity, reintroduce it to the process (aka turbo charging). But, in spite of the all these aspects, a percentage of the increased energy will be absorbed into the cooling system as heat.
There was an old addage that when increasing the compression ratio, the spark plug heat range was made colder, to withstand the higher combustion chamber temps. The same argument may apply to increasing spark advance, which also increases the combustion chamber temps and pressures, assuming uniform fuel distribution.
The comment regarding the Reynolds number is correct. Below 2500 the flow was considered to be in turbulent flow; above that number, the flow will be in laminar flow. But both velocity head, friction head, fluid viscosity also effect system dynamics.
Personally, I would rather have a too large a radiator than too small. Just my opinion of course.
BOB RENTON
 
RJRENTON said:
True, to some extent but, is the energy conversion 100%? If the energy expended is not all utilized, where does the un-utilized portion go? Some of it is absorbed as friction (generating heat), pushing the piston down, some of it is absorbed in the cooling system and the balance is discharged as exhaust. In addition to parasitic pumping losses. If the conversion of fuel to energy were 100%, the exhaust temp would be low. But to capture all the energy (or a significant part of it), one would need to recover the heat and energy in the exhaust, as latent heat and velocity, reintroduce it to the process (aka turbo charging). But, in spite of the all these aspects, a percentage of the increased energy will be absorbed into the cooling system as heat.
There was an old addage that when increasing the compression ratio, the spark plug heat range was made colder, to withstand the higher combustion chamber temps. The same argument may apply to increasing spark advance, which also increases the combustion chamber temps and pressures, assuming uniform fuel distribution.
The comment regarding the Reynolds number is correct. Below 2500 the flow was considered to be in turbulent flow; above that number, the flow will be in laminar flow. But both velocity head, friction head, fluid viscosity also effect system dynamics.
Personally, I would rather have a too large a radiator than too small. Just my opinion of course.
BOB RENTON
Click to expand...

The combustion temp is indeed higher. Net heat out is lower (with higher efficiency / compression)

Reynolds number below 2000 is laminar. 2000 - 4600 transition and above 4600 turbulent.
 
biomedtechguy said:
I see advantages to it, like no rusting or oxidation, because it eliminates water. Also a BIG difference is with the waterless Evans, the system isn't under constant fairly high pressure, and that has to have some benefits in reducing or eliminating wear, tear, and damage that would be pressure related.
Now I was concerned about it running warmer than a typical water/antifreeze based system, the cost, and the need for a very water free system for it to be introduced to.
On the subject of overheating, we picked up our 65 GTO today, that a "referred home based" mechanic has been working on for a couple of months. Dakota Digital VHX gauges, Wraptor serpentine belt and accessories system, and Vintage Air too.
One of the 2 Cold Case electric fans went out in their "2 fan and aluminum shroud" system they sold me. I can't blame the fan yet, but I don't know why it died, but it's definitely dead. I got the GTO radiator (and I bought one for my 440+6bbl Roadrunner to replace the 26" factory radiator) from Cold Case and once the Wraptor was installed, it pushed everything far enough forward towards the radiator that the factory mechanical fan and shroud had to be replaced.
There are a number of problems that unfortunately I didn't discover until (my wife) drove her GTO home, with me following.
Long story short, not only did one of the fans go out, but the DD water temperature gauge claimed it was running HOT, like WAY hot. I don't believe it, because at 295° the pressure relief spring in the cap on the radiator should have been forced up and open to relieve pressure, but that didn't happen. I think the temp gauge isn't programmed properly, and since we also RAN OUT OF GAS, I know the fuel gauge is NOT programmed correctly!
Click to expand...
My El Camino with DD gauges shipped with the short version of the temp sensor. It always showed it hot. After reading somewhere they will upgrade the sensor to the longer one for free I called them and got a new one. It sits further down into the water column and is more accurate. The car was running warm on hot days. So, I fixed it with the FlowKooler water pump and thermostat. I also threw in a 16 oz. jug of Hy-per Lube Super Coolant, for good measure. Although, I don't think it did anything just adding it to anti-freeze. It's supposed to work better with just water.
 
Nate S said:
The combustion temp is indeed higher. Net heat out is lower (with higher efficiency / compression)

Reynolds number below 2000 is laminar. 2000 - 4600 transition and above 4600 turbulent.
Click to expand...

Yes.....I revisited my copy of Crane's Flow of Fluids.....you are correct. I'm an electrical engineer but frequently worked inside the mechanical engineering discipline.....just a little rusty, but frequently worked on high temp gas to gas heat exchangers. Even with special alloys in the heat exchanger, and with a 5% fouling factor, the best conversion was 75% - 80%. Gas to liquid and liquid to liquid heat exchangers have their own design criteria.
But not all combustion heat is converted to work....I was referring to the portion of the combustion energy that was not accounted for or converted to work. Very few conversion reactions are 100% except the possible H2 to He2 + E, but that's another topic for another time.
BOB RENTON
 
RJRENTON said:
Yes.....I revisited my copy of Crane's Flow of Fluids.....you are correct. I'm an electrical engineer but frequently worked inside the mechanical engineering discipline.....just a little rusty, but frequently worked on high temp gas to gas heat exchangers. Even with special alloys in the heat exchanger, and with a 5% fouling factor, the best conversion was 75% - 80%. Gas to liquid and liquid to liquid heat exchangers have their own design criteria.
But not all combustion heat is converted to work....I was referring to the portion of the combustion energy that was not accounted for or converted to work. Very few conversion reactions are 100% except the possible H2 to He2 + E, but that's another topic for another time.
BOB RENTON
Click to expand...
Right. That’s what I was talking about. “Efficiency“ in this case is how much of the fuel is converted to work instead of heat. Higher compression = higher efficiency = more mechanical work for the same fuel. This means less heat created. (100 Joules in, 25J in work all else is heat. If 30J out, higher efficiency, less heat out). If less heat is created why would it be tougher to cool a higher compression engine? If in fact it is, then the only other major heat release, the exhaust, must get pretty cool because it all needs to sum up in the end.
 
themechanic said:
DD gauges shipped with the short version of the temp sensor. It always showed it hot. After reading somewhere they will upgrade the sensor to the longer one for free I called them and got a new one. It sits further down into the water column and is more accurate.
Click to expand...
I don't know which water temperature sensor came w/the system as I didn't install it, but before I call DD tech support Monday, I will see which one it is, THANKS!
I ran the engine in the garage today until the 180° thermostat opened, and I had tested the temperature of several components with a touch free "laser/infrared" temperature tool I got yesterday (not just for this but this was the tipping point for me to buy a tool I've been wanting). As I suspected late in the debacle of despair that yesterday's disappointing "come get your GTO, it's ready" (but it wasn't, so I discovered) was, the car WAS NOT overheating, even with the one fan out.
Today, with only the one 16" fan running, in the garage with no fan blowing through the front/grille of the car, 195° seemed to be the fast idle (1,500 RPMs) temperature, but the gauge needle is pegged on "H" and the degrees digital readout was reading 280° when I first turned the car on, when in fact it was stone cold.
My point is I don't think I have a cooling problem other than the fan that went out, and hopefully Monday I'll either get the gauges fixed or a new temp sensor on the way from DD, and a replacement fan from Cold Case.
 
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