Coolant additive tests
 

Mike, you might want to consider some water wetter for your cooling issue... Appears to work best with antifreeze mix.

http://www.turbomagazine.com/feature...t_results.html

i recently recommended alex to try it out. with the accuracy of a stock guage, he says: "water wetter cools about an 1/8th inch better"(than 50/50 mix).

No, it actually doesn't. It does do some cool things and it's a good idea to use it if you do more than put around town, but it does not actually lower bulk water temperatures. That would defy physics.

linky:
http://e30m3performance.com/myths/mo...ter_wetter.htm

OMG, it does too. http://www.redlineoil.com/products_c...coolantFlash=1

And if you want to get overly technical, read this PDF... http://www.redlineoil.com/whitePaper/17.pdf

By decreasing the surface tension of the fluid, it increases thermal efficiency and heat transfer which has the overall effect of lowering coolant system temperatures. There are no laws of Thermal Dynamics being violated.

I'm curious how improving the heat transfer from metal hotspots and localized boiling leads to reduced bulk temperatures.

RTFL

I'm assuming Water Wetter makes the cooling system more efficient at removing heat. The fluid can then conduct heat from the motor out through the radiator more efficiently than before. Subsequently the entire system runs cooler (including the fluid).

However I don't think the stock temp gauge would show much of anything unless there were preexisting overheating issues. At least my stock gauge lacks much in the way of accuracy. Mine's never budged after warm up.












Why do I feel like I'm walking into a Kevin trap?

because you are.

i agree with you though cody it seems to boost the efficiency therefore lowering water temps.

So, wouldn't a drop or two of dish soap achieve the same thing? (Not that I read the links, but soap works by reducing water surface tension, thus making water "wetter" and therefore better at cleaning)

The foaming would be an issue I think.

The test car in that article had an inadequate cooling system and was prone to overheating. That's why they chose it. In a properly designed cooling sytem the thermostat regulates the water temperature and therefore the guage will read about the same with or without a water wetter. The magazine test does demonstrate that these "wetters" do work at least to some extent, and they are handy for overtaxed cooling systems.

Either way... I was convinced of their value about 15 or 20 years ago and have been using them since.

I believe in them too. They do good things with no downside other than ~$8 per coolant cycle.

So wait, I didn't walk into a Kevin trap?

Good idea Scott, go ahead and try it! :)

RTFL

I think Cody is right on foaming. (Somebody please note on the calendar both that he may be right as well as contributed to a technical discussion) :)

They also have to deal with corrosion and a few other goodies at least in a water only mix.

My sarcasm was apparently too concealed by soap tech.

I was too lazy to spring it properly.

Yeah, that's it.

:banana:

http://www.wrxfanatics.com/style_emo...sad_banana.gif

:lol:

^ post of the day right there. Sad bananas ftw. :lol:

Post of the day right there actually. For nominating a post from yesterday as post of the day. :lol:

Ok, it's the post of two days. :P

:banana:

me=http://www.wrxfanatics.com/style_emo...sad_banana.gif

Out of curiosity, what is the stock subaru coolant solution?

50/50 unless they've started selling premix.

The best solution for cooling problems is to either get a bigger heat exchanger, a more efficient one, or make more fluid flow through it (air and/or coolant). Don't be tempted to start upping the ratio of water to coolant above 50/50 (unless required by track rules), you'll probably run into corrosion problems.

Bump!

Since I'm back to running the WRX at the track, and since I'm still having problems keeping water temps under control, I figured I'd bump the existing water wetter thread, even though it's from the less friendly era of SECCS tech threads. :lol:

Here's something I came across: http://forums.rennlist.com/rennforum...-heads-up.html

Granted, it's from some dude at Royal Purple, there may be a good reason to pick one of the alternatives to RedLine's Water Wetter product if this polymerization accusation is true. I heard a similar story from Greg Benson at BBR regarding not using Water Wetter and choosing the Royal Purple Ice instead.

So, in addition to an extraction vent on my hood and override switches for both my radiator fans, I'm going to run 80/20 water/coolant ratio plus the Purple Ice stuff in my car at the next track day and see if I can get my temps under control.

I think my biggest issue is that there's simply too much crap in front of my radiator hurting cooling efficiency. Sure, I've got a large Koyo radiator, but there's also a big intercooler and a giant oil cooler in front of it. So when I've got the best airflow (going down a long straight) I'm also heating the intercooler the most (high boost).

The good news is that, as opposed to years past, when I run a cool down lap the car actually cools down, and while my water temps are insane (pushing 230-240F... it's hard to tell since it's off the gauge :lol: ), my oil temps are stable around 245F even when the water is too hot. So, I think I'm close to being able to get more than one hot lap out of the car at a time. Then again, it was in the 80's at the last track day... if it's 100F out at the event at the end of the month, nothing may work.. not even a V-mount radiator/intercooler. :(

I usually down a large grain of salt with any technical information provided by someone who sells the product in question, but his comments are both very public and somewhat inflammatory- which suggests he is saying nothing that is not 100% factual... or at least that he believes he is. Either way, that's a good reason to switch from Redline. That, and I'm edging toward not really offering much of their stuff other than gear oils, because their pricing is starting to exceed the market.

Run the fans at 48v, who knows you might get some boost out of it.

You're going to have to elaborate. How does one go about converting a 12V car system to run fans at 48V, aside from a DC-DC converter and new 48V fans?

Or are you making a PC overclocking joke that went over my head?

For the record... my fan override switches are simple ground switches on the two ECU pins that the ECU switches to ground to turn on the main fan relays. I'm hoping there aren't any weird side effects from manually grounding those pins. When I tested it, everything seemed to work fine.

Did you confirm you have a 160 degree thermostat.

If not, get one! Water temp on the idiot gauge should be at the lower line with a 160.

It's impossible to tell what my thermostat is... normal running temp of my car is like 195. :lol:

I'm not so sure a lower temp thermostat really makes a difference. If my car is running above 195, the thermostat is 100% open regardless of what temp it's attempting to regulate to. The only benefit is that the stat opens a little earlier, so potentially that would delay overheating, but if the thermal capacity of the cooling system is below the amount of heat generated, the thermostat can't do anything in the long run.

Regardless, I did order a 160F stat, but simply because they're fail-open and (hopefully) better flowing than whatever's in my car currently. I'm not expecting a miracle though. If anything the higher pressure cap I've got makes a bigger difference because so far I'm not boiling over into the reservoir even at ~240F. Once the cap opens and the boiling point of the system drops to 212, my session is over.

Just a thought, have you verified that the water temp readings you're getting are accurate, with a different gauge?

If those temps are right it sounds like a recipe for another blown engine before long. Do you have a good air path from the nose through the radiator? Top & sides around it sealed off to promote more airflow through it? Can you relocate the oil cooler somewhere else?

Well, the water temp gauge is relatively new, and it's not an el-cheapo gauge, and it matches the temps read by the ECU (or at least the fans kick on at 205 on the gauge which is what temp I think the ECU turns them on at). I drilled and tapped the water cross-over pipe on the block, which is where the stock gauge sender also is and I believe should be one of the hottest places to read from. I've got the factory undertray... but Kevin actually mentioned that he had one of the newer generation undertrays he could loan me to see if the longer tray creates more negative pressure under the car. So that might help a little.

I spent a lot of time trying to address radiator airflow. I blocked off the hood scoop so it wouldn't pressurize the engine bay (though that's now replaced with a hood that's got an extractor right over the radiator). I've got an aftermarket shroud on the top of the radiator, and I made my own side shrouds that prevent air leaking around the radiator since the A/C condenser was removed. The bumper seals to the FMIC, so there's not a lot room for improvement, aside from a splitter or an actual air box extending from the bumper to really collect the air.

The oil cooler is kinda too large to go anywhere but in front. I could possibly relocate it to the LF fender with some great effort, but getting proper airflow to and from it would be a challenge. Though, that may be the last thing I can try that won't cost me $4000 to buy a V-mount setup. I'm really trying not to spend any significant money on the WRX since I'm probably going to part it out and put my effort into tracking the Miata instead.

You might need to do an actual sealed air box from opening to radiator if nothing else is working. Splitter would be my next thought, which has an obvious downforce bonus for handling and they're fairly easy to make. Increasing airflow through the rad is all about pressure differential, need to increase P in front of it and lower P behind it. Either one or both of those options costs way less than $4k to fabricate.

If the coolant temp sensor the ECU uses lines up with your gauge then that's good enough correlation, readings should be accurate.

Here's the approximate layout of the radiator (blue), oil cooler (orange), and intercooler (red). The black lines are the body/bumper/shrouds in the top-down view. I super-imposed the boxes on a picture of the car so you can get a feeling for how the air is entering the cores (I don't run at the track with the lights installed, but the supertones are on there still).

http://www.seccs.org/images/misc/WRX_cooling_layout.png

If I were to build an air box, it would basically mean cutting the bumper and front grill out and extending it out and away from the body. Much like GST did on an earlier version of their Time Attack car:

http://www.worldtimeattack.com/wp-co...ticle_gst1.jpg

That's not something I'm really keen to do. A splitter would be nice, but as it is, the car needs more rear downforce in the high-speed stuff... a splitter would mean I'd need an actual functional wing on the back of the car to keep it pointing the right direction in the RFR esses, which is like $1000 for something decent. :(

I think I need to focus on lowering the pressure in the engine bay. The new extractor hood should help. I haven't had a chance to drive the car at speed since we put it on... and I should probably avoid 100+ mph until my hood pins arrive.

Here's another car with the same hood to get an idea of the extractor:

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d1...ugeyefront.jpg

The vent in the hood is about 14"x2", give or take, and positioned directly above the gap between the radiator and the motor. I replaced the stainless steel mesh (that probably blocked 50% of the area) with some cheap-o "gutter guard" plastic mesh (that blocks more like 1% of the area).

Short of aerodynamic testing of various undertray shapes, or possibly relocating the oil cooler to a fender and figuring out airflow there, or getting a $4000 v-mount, I'm out of ideas.

The extractor might help quite a bit if you haven't run with it at speed yet. As far as other aero tweaks, I dunno if you just left it off but the pic only showed one side sealed from the bodywork opening to the rad. There are other things you can do to help vent air out of the engine bay; massaging the bodywork behind the tire as illustrated can help quite a bit. Keep in mind that anything you do to lower pressure under the hood will also act to cancel front lift/create front downforce, so it will exaggerate any current high speed oversteer tendencies. A fancy wing also usually isn't necessary to create some actual downforce on the rear end to balance things out - a NASCAR style spoiler is cheap, very simple, and effective. Might not be the look you want, but it works.

The other side of the equation is the coolant - I don't know what options are available, but have you looked into higher flow rate water pumps? Pushing more water through will work just as well if not better than pushing more air through the rad. Or maybe the current pump is starting to cavitate at high RPMs and needs to actually be slowed down? I know that would happen with the power steering pump in particular on the Mustangs. I dunno, things to think about.

That spot you indicated is effectively sealed off due to the sides of the radiator, oil cooler, and body right there. I'm sure it could be a little bit better sealed with some bulb-seal or something like I used on the other side, but there aren't any gaps larger than 1/8" over there and it would have required pulling the radiator and oil cooler out of the car, so I didn't bother when I did the other side (where there was like a 2" gap).

Do small gaps like that make a significant difference? I figure the air can flow through the radiator so much easier than the gaps that it wouldn't make a noticeable difference. Sure, every bit helps, but I wasn't too concerned. I guess I can try to take another pass over the layout of things and look for places to improve the sealing. I have a feeling there are similar gaps at the top and bottom of the radiator, even with an aftermarket upper shroud that supposed to seal it off. That too could use some bulb-seal I bet.

One thing to note about the fenders... while I do have the factory undertray on the car, I do *not* have the complete factory fender liners. That means the area on plane with the undertray between the framerails and outboard fenders is open. That's a spot that would get covered if I installed a splitter. I wonder how much that effects the overall anti-lift and air extraction from the under the hood. I removed that part of the fender liners specifically because they kept getting sucked off the car and yanked under the tire at speed. So, there is definitely some air flowing through there. :lol:

If there are any gaps left around the radiator, I'd try sealing them off. All those little fins present a decent resistance (pressure drop), so air will slide around the rad just as easily as going through it.

There is an opening above the radiator where the factory "snorkus" used to be. It would help to seal that off somehow. That actually would be a good KSTech product. Hmmm...

Now that you mention it... I never looked to notice if that new carbon hood has any rubber seal on it at all.

If the stock thermostat is 175 ish and you have a 160, but your car runs at 195 normally... why even have a thermostat in there? sure it speeds up your warm up time. but it sounds like your car will warm up fast enough with out it .

I would figure the added flow of not having a thermostat would be much better than any of the down sides. unless you are worried about having the heat working in the winter while driving to work to something :?:

does running no thermostat cause too much water flow? take a busted one and drill out the center ?

since you do mostly track, how about a water sprayer for your radiator / Intercooler? Its cheap and affective. (spraying for 1 lap will take my car take my car from running hot, to running a normal temp) and carrying enough water for 20 minutes of spray wouldn't be an insane amount of weight. with a full stock tank i think i get about 10-15 minutes of spray time and i believe that's just 1 gallon. (or 8 pounds) You could probably find an inexpensive timer to do on/off cycles

Honestly you could buy a used kit from someone buy a little bit of extra hosing to run it to your front mount and try it. if it doesn't help at all you coudl sell it for the same price. making the finicial risk very low (much cheaper than going to a V-dam setup)

I've run a water sprayer on the front of the car before. I've even got a water spray computer to monitor temps and automatically spray the intercooler. And a spec-c water tank and massive pump.

Problem is... it would run non-stop at the track. :lol: Also, it needed some check valves because the sprayers were lower than the tank, resulting in a constant slow drip that would slowly drain the tank unless I clamped the hose off between sessions. Plus, it didn't make a noticeable difference back then... of course I also had a bunch of airflow issues, so a sprayer now might actually work a bit better than back then.

Eventually, that setup became a water injection setup, which eventually became the contents of a box in my garage. Maybe I should consider going back to it? I just would much rather not have to rely on complicated gizmos to keep the car cool. I just want to be able to drive the damn thing, and not fuss with it, which is why I ditched stuff like the water injection in the first place. :(

Maybe I should ditch the front mount and go to a giant TMIC? It's not like my horsepower goals require a FMIC. It would just be a ton of work to get an uncut bumper, a bumper beam, relocate my AOS (to who knows where), switch back to the stock hood, reinstall my STi hood scoop, get a new splitter (my STi splitter I think is in parts now), retune the car, all for the privileged of spending $1000 on a new intercooler/hoses. :mad: