66 327/350 What is Normal Operating Temp

[Michael W.]

Re: 66 327/350 What is Normal Operating Temp

Is there any documented back to back 'blind' testing to indicate that these type of products work? I'd do it myself, but I have a weird Corvettes that runs just fine in all sorts of conditions with the stock config cooling system and standard coolant mixture.

Call me a sceptic...........

[Clem Z.]

Re: 66 327/350 What is Normal Operating Temp

we used to use water soluable oil that is used in machining to carry away the heat in the rads of our race engines because race tracks will not alow anti freeze because it is imposable to clean up. it prevented the rust in the water passages that comes from just using plain water

[Stephen B.]

Re: 66 327/350 What is Normal Operating Temp

"Antifreeze" comes in several different flavors. Notwithstanding those that are not ethylene glycol based, they consist of ethylene glycol and a carefully developed and tested corrosion inhibitor package. The three basic types are IAT (which is obsolete), OAT, and HOAT, all of which have been discussed many times in the past.

A mixture of pure water and the proper type of antifreeze for the types of materials in the cooling system results in a very carefully balanced concentration of various chemicals to provide maximum corrosion protection. The reason to use distilled rather than tap water is to not introduce any undesireable chemicals/ions that could degrade the corrosion inhibitors. Tap water has various salts along with chorine and fluorine, both of which are detrimental.

I've never been able to determine the chemical analysis of Water Wetter (or any other cooling system supplemental additive), so I have no idea if it is compatible or not with the various antifreeze technologies, which is why I recommend avoiding it, unless you have a race car where the rules say no antifreeze because it's difficult to clean up track spills.

The OEMs didn't use any supplemental cooling system additives (other than a couple of Bar's Leaks tablets) when our cars were built, and they don't use them on new cars.

If a vintage Corvette overheats or has chronically high operating temperatures in mild weather, find and fix the root cause of the problem.

Duke

I couldn't agree more with your last statement in particular.My point would be that the product I am recommending works well on cars that are marginal and problematic in hot weather. I also know from experiance that it works so well that if you don't have an over heating problem and you add this product that you then have a cold running engine.
Respectfully
Stephen Barrett (21558)

[Clem Z.]

Re: 66 327/350 What is Normal Operating Temp

intresting write up on water wetter. http://www.wizdforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2338

[Roger O.]

Re: 66 327/350 What is Normal Operating Temp

As C4 specialist Gordon Killebrew always says, if your car starts to overheat, don't turn the air conditioner off, turn it on!

I doubt very seriously that turning the AC on in a (factory wired) C3 will make it run cooler even with a kickup solenoid. For those in a traffic situation that you can't get out of ,and can't turn the car off I would believe shifting to neutral , raising the engine RPM a little and turning the heater on would be your best bet.

Is there any documented back to back 'blind' testing to indicate that these type of products work? I'd do it myself, but I have a weird Corvettes that runs just fine in all sorts of conditions with the stock config cooling system and standard coolant mixture. Call me a sceptic...........

Yes a properly run test would put this to rest. I will say a buddy of mine was going to race his car one weekend and he drained his new 50/50 anti-freeze (saved it) and put in the water wetter. He said he noticed the engine ran cooler. He had been running a 160 thermostat with engine temps around 190 , with the water wetter he was around 170 which was too cold. For race day he installed a 180 and the engine maintained 180. After race day he drained the WW and put the saved anti-freeze back in......yep you guessed it his temp went back to 190. Not a perfect test but always made me wonder.

[Dick W.]

Re: 66 327/350 What is Normal Operating Temp

I doubt very seriously that turning the AC on in a (factory wired) C3 will make it run cooler even with a kickup solenoid. For those in a traffic situation that you can't get out of ,and can't turn the car off I would believe shifting to neutral , raising the engine RPM a little and turning the heater on would be your best bet.

Turning the AC off will most definitely reduce engine temps. You reduce the load on the engine when the compressor goes off, and two, the condenser in front of the radiator is nothing but a heat exchanger. It is shedding the heat that has been removed from the cockpit. Until I changed the radiator on our '72 BB car, when it would overheat with the AC on, turning it off would always bring the temps back down to a manageable level

[Joe L.]

Re: 66 327/350 What is Normal Operating Temp

I doubt very seriously that turning the AC on in a (factory wired) C3 will make it run cooler even with a kickup solenoid. For those in a traffic situation that you can't get out of ,and can't turn the car off I would believe shifting to neutral , raising the engine RPM a little and turning the heater on would be your best bet.


Yes a properly run test would put this to rest. I will say a buddy of mine was going to race his car one weekend and he drained his new 50/50 anti-freeze (saved it) and put in the water wetter. He said he noticed the engine ran cooler. He had been running a 160 thermostat with engine temps around 190 , with the water wetter he was around 170 which was too cold. For race day he installed a 180 and the engine maintained 180. After race day he drained the WW and put the saved anti-freeze back in......yep you guessed it his temp went back to 190. Not a perfect test but always made me wonder.

Roger------


Gordon is talking about C4's, not C3's. All C4's have electric fans. C3's use an engine driven fan (however, some 79-82 with C-60 also use an electric fan).

As far as the coolant issue goes, strictly from a heat transfer and cooling standpoint plain water is absolutely the best coolant. So, I'm not surprised that your friend's experience was as described. I don't think the "water-wetter" necessarily had anything to do with it. I think he would have experienced the same thing if he had used just plain water with no additive.

The problem is that plain water creates other problems, notably corrosion, a lower boiling point, and a higher freezing point. The water wetter might help with the corrosion problem of plain water but not with the other problems.

[Daniel N.]

Re: 66 327/350 What is Normal Operating Temp

It was 97 degrees today and at stop lights the temp got up to 210 with the a/c on. It did drop down when moving. Got me thinking what is the safe ranges?

You are doing well. I wouldn't worry about it. If the temperature rises only at idle and never at higher speeds, you might check the vacuum advance. But, again, I have done a lot of research on this over the last couple of months, and I would be happy with 210 degrees with the AC on and outside temperatures in the high nineties. (For some reason, cooling issues generate a lot of heated replies on forums--no pun intended.)

[Roger O.]

Re: 66 327/350 What is Normal Operating Temp

Roger------


Gordon is talking about C4's, not C3's. All C4's have electric fans. C3's use an engine driven fan (however, some 79-82 with C-60 also use an electric fan).

As far as the coolant issue goes, strictly from a heat transfer and cooling standpoint plain water is absolutely the best coolant. So, I'm not surprised that your friend's experience was as described. I don't think the "water-wetter" necessarily had anything to do with it. I think he would have experienced the same thing if he had used just plain water with no additive.

The problem is that plain water creates other problems, notably corrosion, a lower boiling point, and a higher freezing point. The water wetter might help with the corrosion problem of plain water but not with the other problems.

Not to be argumentative but if water is better than anti-freeze then why can't something be better than water ? Wasn't alcohol used in some cooling systems and if so was it better than water ?
I like water and I think it tastes good most of the time but sometimes I like beer better.

[Dick W.]

Re: 66 327/350 What is Normal Operating Temp

Not to be argumentative but if water is better than anti-freeze then why can't something be better than water ? Wasn't alcohol used in some cooling systems and if so was it better than water ?
I like water and I think it tastes good most of the time but sometimes I like beer better.

Ethylene gycol has a higher boiling point that alcohol. Plus the modern coolants do require any anti foaming, corrosion, etc packages to protect your engines. I am old enough to remember all the problems that went with alcolol and the early ethylene gycol coolants.

[Joe L.]

Re: 66 327/350 What is Normal Operating Temp

Not to be argumentative but if water is better than anti-freeze then why can't something be better than water ? Wasn't alcohol used in some cooling systems and if so was it better than water ?
I like water and I think it tastes good most of the time but sometimes I like beer better.

Roger-----

I don't know of anything that's better than plain water as far as heat transfer and cooling ability. There may be some "exotic substances" that would work better, but they'd probably be highly impractical. In fact, even ethylene glycol only works well for cooling when it's mixed with water. If you use 100% ethylene glycol coolant you'll find it works VERY poorly for cooling. 70% is about the highest concentration you can use. Cooling will suffer at this concentration, though.

Alcohol was used as an early type of antifreeze. It was not used straight, though; it was mixed with water just like today's ethylene glycol coolants. It is totally obsolete and, as far as I know, not used anymore.

[John H.]

Re: 66 327/350 What is Normal Operating Temp

We tested Water-Wetter as part of our normal engine development program at Viper Engineering, and it's primarily a surfactant, to minimize formation of localized steam pockets at "hot spots" in cast coolant passages ("nucleate boiling"); any certified commercial anti-freeze already contains surfactants as part of the additive package, which explains why we observed no cooling improvement (except when it was used with plain water as coolant, as we did with the factory GTS-R race cars).

We also ran tests at that time on the then-new propylene glycol "environmentally friendly" coolant ("Sierra" brand), which led to putting a warning in the owner's manual that use of such coolant would degrade cooling performance and could void the powertrain warranty; that stuff reduced heat transfer efficiency about 10%.

[Pat M.]

Re: 66 327/350 What is Normal Operating Temp

Yes a properly run test would put this to rest. I will say a buddy of mine was going to race his car one weekend and he drained his new 50/50 anti-freeze (saved it) and put in the water wetter. He said he noticed the engine ran cooler. He had been running a 160 thermostat with engine temps around 190 , with the water wetter he was around 170 which was too cold. For race day he installed a 180 and the engine maintained 180. After race day he drained the WW and put the saved anti-freeze back in......yep you guessed it his temp went back to 190. Not a perfect test but always made me wonder.

Roger------

As far as the coolant issue goes, strictly from a heat transfer and cooling standpoint plain water is absolutely the best coolant. So, I'm not surprised that your friend's experience was as described. I don't think the "water-wetter" necessarily had anything to do with it. I think he would have experienced the same thing if he had used just plain water with no additive.

Well Roger, based on what Joe's saying your friend should run a third test using just plain water under the same conditions and see how the results compare to the first two tests. Could produce persuasive results.

[Michael W.]

Re: 66 327/350 What is Normal Operating Temp

Yes a properly run test would put this to rest. I will say a buddy of mine was going to race his car one weekend and he drained his new 50/50 anti-freeze (saved it) and put in the water wetter. He said he noticed the engine ran cooler. He had been running a 160 thermostat with engine temps around 190 , with the water wetter he was around 170 which was too cold. For race day he installed a 180 and the engine maintained 180. After race day he drained the WW and put the saved anti-freeze back in......yep you guessed it his temp went back to 190. Not a perfect test but always made me wonder.

But not a blind test. Self full-filling prophesies and the placebo effect are very powerful elements.

[Roger O.]

Re: 66 327/350 What is Normal Operating Temp

Well Roger, based on what Joe's saying your friend should run a third test using just plain water under the same conditions and see how the results compare to the first two tests. Could produce persuasive results.

But not a blind test. Self full-filling prophesies and the placebo effect are very powerful elements.

Maybe it was just the water.