water wetter, distilled water & synthetic oil

[Don W.]

I have a mechanic that was also a NASCAR crew chief that works on my '69. He suggested 100% distilled or de-ionized water with water wetter and to always use 100% syntheic oil as this is how race engines are operated?

Any experience or input?

Thanks,

Don

[Lyndon S.]

Re: water wetter, distilled water & synthetic oil

No Yes No

[Don W.]

Re: water wetter, distilled water & synthetic oil

Why? Why? and Why?

[Joe L.]

Re: water wetter, distilled water & synthetic oil

Don-----

I would NEVER, EVER use 100% water (distilled or otherwise) in a street engine. For one thing, doing so will reduce your boil-over point, even in a 15 PSI pressurized system, to a level that you may easily exceed. Then, you get boil-over. You don't want that. NASCAR engine and cooling systems may be designed to work with straight water; street engines are not. Straight water is the best from a heat transfer standpoint, but there are too many other problems with it to use it for a street application.

For another thing, even with the "Water Wetter", you will still have increased corrosion with straight water. You just won't have the anti-corrosion capabilities of a coolant mix. This is not a problem for racing engines since they are torn down frequently.

I like synthetic oil. I use it in my Corvettes, including the soon-to-be operational ( I hope) "ZL-1". However, I don't think that the benefits of it are huge. At the present time for my other "driver" cars, I use conventional oil. I might switch to synthetic for one of them, though.

[Don W.]

Re: water wetter, distilled water & synthetic oil

Thanks for the clear and understandable response.....Don

[Gary Schisler]

Re: water wetter, distilled water & synthetic oil

50% antifreeze (I prefer the Zerex G-05 - lots of discussion on this in the archives) and 50% distilled water. Distilled water or pure tap water is not the way to go. Someone (Duke maybe?) put out a good discussion of the chemical reasons not to use straight distilled water but basically it wants to equalize the mineral content between the distilled water and the iron in the block. Did I screw this description up.

Gary

[Duke W.]

Re: water wetter, distilled water & synthetic oil

Do you race your car every weekend, then drain the coolant, pull the engine and rebuilt it?

... throw the block and heads away after maybe one or two thousand miles - less than a year of service?

Road cars are not race cars - it's a totally different operating environment, and what "works" for a race car is not necessarily useful for a road car and vice versa.

As far as oil is concerned just make sure you use CI-4 oil. CI-4 available in mineral oil or synthetic base stocks. Your money, your choice, but if you don't see 300 degree F. oil temperatures. do cold starts at below zero temperatures, or want to run 10,000 plus miles between changes, synthetic base stocks offer no advantage.

Duke

[Duke W.]

Re: water wetter, distilled water & synthetic oil

Commercial antifreeze is blended with chemicals that constitute a very sophisticated corrosion inhibitor package, and most OEMs also recommend a 50/50 blend of commercial antifreeze and water to both minimize the freezing point and achieve the best and most long lasting corrosion protection.

Many OEMs say it's okay to use "potable water", but most potable water contains minerals and various added chemicals including chlorine, which can be very corrosive to cooling system components.

Distilled water is free of minerals and chemicals to any significant concentration, so if you use distilled water, you are assured that you have not introduced any undesirebale contaminents. "Premixed" antifreeze is already diluted 50/50 with distilled water, but it's a lot more expensive per gallon of blend than just buying full strength antifreeze and an equal amount of distilled water for about a buck a gallon.

Recently I read a post somewhere and the guy said that premix was a lot more convenient. For a SB cooling system that holds about 16 quarts you need two gallons of full stength antifreeze, which you pour in first, then continue with the distilled water until the system if full. The "premix" alternative is to pour in four gallons of premix. Fourth grade math says the total you have to pour in is 4 gallons of fluid either way, so how does that make premix more convenient.

Duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

Distilled or deionized water on it's own can be very corrosive because any metal in contact with it will dissolve to an equalibrium concentration that you can find in any basic chemistry textbook. The now ionized water has increased conductivity and possibly a different pH.

Distilled and deionized water got a bad rap fifty year ago because some morons who never took a basic chemistry course decided that such would be the best thing to put into their cooling systems - without any antifreeze or supplemental corrosion inhibitor, and they paid a price. Of course the problem was using STRAIGHT distilled water and the ignorant thinking behind the "idea".

Duke

[John H.]

Re: water wetter, distilled water & synthetic oil

Most race sanctioning organizations (including NASCAR) prohibit the use of anti-freeze, due to the difficulty of cleaning up the slick track surface in the event of coolant loss with anti-freeze; that's why only water is used in "race cars". Use a 50-50 mix of distilled water and anti-freeze.

[Alan Drake]

Re: water wetter, distilled water

Thanks for the comments - now I know why when I drained my coolent system of all distilled water (only in for 6 months, but never run) the amount of rust was much more than expected.

Now since the mix with anti freeze can be a problem to get rid of, is there an additive one can use to get the same anti rust protection which can just be dumped?? If not I will start saving the mix, need to drain again before next month.

Again thanks for bring issue up before I really screw things up.

[Dick W.]

Re: water wetter, distilled water

PenCool, made by the Pennray Company (sp). It is available thru Wix, NAPA, Carquest, etc as a cooling additive. Is used in hd truck engines. Also available at you local blue oval dealer. It is the cooling system additive that they recommend for the 7.3L diesel