odonnell

Starting two threads in the same day... is that a no-no?



I was just talking to a co-worker about optimizing my cooling system, as I live in Texas and Houston traffic can really suck sometimes. He mentioned a product called WaterWetter that supposedly eliminates the need for a 50/50 coolant/water mix. You just fill with water and add your product, it prevents corrosion and supposedly has better heat transfer.

Here's a link to their page: http://www.redlineoil.com/product.aspx?product=80204

I'm curious because I had my 944 in a shop and I have no way of verifying that they used phosphate-free coolant, so I'm going to flush and re-fill. I already had to squeeze an air bubble out of the upper radiator hose. This seems like it could be a good idea, but I wanted to run it by some gurus here before I go and do something stupid

Van

Almost all of the track guys run waterwetter, and I do, too. It seems fine.

Also, use distilled water.

odonnell

Awesome thanks

John_AZ

In various reports I've see and on the site above, 1 ounce per quart will give the best results, The bottle holds 12 oz. If the entire bottle is used, you may only get 5 to 10 degree cooling---just above better than nothing-with 50/50 coolant mix.



Using less coolant instead of the 50/50 mix is also advised to get best cooling from WaterWetter.
3 Quarts coolant will work year round in the sun belt lower elevations.

Most auto part houses sell for $11.99---Walmart is about $8 a bottle.

Yes it does work.

J_AZ

Dougs951S

I run 8 ounces of water wetter, ~2 quarts of phosphate free coolant just for the anti corrosion, and the rest is distilled water. Runs just above the 2nd of the 4 white lines (1/4 of the way up the gauge) in 100+ degree days. BTW it really helps when you bleed the coolant system to have the front end jacked up as high as you can get it. These cars can be tough to bleed sometimes. Make sure you have the heat turned to max and wait for the fans to cycled at least one. After that, I carry a 13mm wrench around with me for a day or 2 and everytime I stop the car and get out, I pop the hood and crack the bleeder just for a second. It often takes a few heat cycles to work out all the air.

MAGK944

I use it in the track car as some tracks won't allow coolant. Never needed to "cool" my coolant on the road cars here in FL. Would think of you are thinking of using it on a street driven car your coolant system needs work.

odonnell

Sounds like this is the way I'll go. This weekend will be jam-packed with tinkering....

txhokie4life

As I understand it -- Coolant is actually a poorer conductor of heat than antifreeze.
so from a cooling perspective -- you are better off with just water.

However -- how does water wetter do in mildly freezing weather?
On occasion Austin will freeze -- I could just park it in the garage
and stick a light bulb in the handful of nights/days that's a concern.

I've got a 80% track car that I'll be filling up soon -- so this question is pertinent.

Mike

StoogeMoe

I read THIS link and was scared off from running the stuff. Maybe they rectified the problem? Or it was only specific to RedLine?

Joel8005

Water wetter / distilled water in the race car, never had an a issue with temps.

J Berk

With a properly working cooling system I don't think you need to use anything other than the proper antifreeze.

While NJ is certainly not Texas (you were just here...you know).....it can get hot here occasionally

I have driven my car in 100deg temps....even done track events in upper 90's...and never gotten more than about 2/3 up the scale.

Although I've never been required to do it...it's probably a good idea to run WW instead of slippery antifreeze on track days.

I only do an occasional DE so that has not been an issue.

HJK

Dont use my 944 on the road, but racing in Thailand I started using it to get temps below 100c and it just works.

BikePilot

I've used it in race bikes. Plain water cools better than most anything but most engines like some corrosion protection and something to lube the water pump seal. That's where water wetter comes in. It doesn't provide any substantial freeze protection nor does it make the car cool better (than plain water), it just allows you to run roughly plain water without corrosion and water pump problems. I might put some in the porsche since I live in FL where it never really freezes.

73911

Start with distilled water.

'We can also add some things to this distilled water. We can start by adding a surfactant. This is a compound that lowers the surface tension of a liquid. It lowers the interfacial tension between a liquid and a solid. What actually happens is a surfactant allows for a greater surface area of the water to come into contact with the radiator tube.

Most anti-freeze has some surfactant. Water Wetter is really just concentrated surfactant. Below 40 is based on the same concept. The idea is that by changing the surface tension of the water you will change the thermodynamic flow from the water to the radiator tube. The surfactant actually allows more of the water molecule’s surface to come into contact with the tubing in the radiator. It changes the water molecule from a sphere to an oval shape."

Taken from Car Tech Stuff

Richard Newton

odonnell

I remember this thread. I ended up just using ordinary coolant, it got down into the teens the last few winters and my car was in an apartment parking lot. Even in TX with 50/50 it's dead on the first hash mark with all cooling system components new or refreshed (and lower temp TS and fan switch).