yes, a buddy in a club of mine tried it on one of our tech days. he had both temp sensors and both were operating. this was on a tbi 350 from a van in a land cruiser. admittedly, it worked with WW and water, just like advertised. but that provides no corrosion protection and doesnt lube the water pump. i assumed y'all were adding it to your coolant, because again, i assumed that you wanted to retain teh corrosion protection and lubing properties. if you are running WW and water, it WILL work. if running WW with coolant, i have seen it make the oil hotter, and have heard from buds that it does the same. i wouldnt bet my truck on it, cuz i love it too much, but i would bet my car!

 

A debate is a lost cause on this BBS. You can post a hundred non-partisan tests, 20+ years of personal experiences, yada ya and never get any closer to an answer for some people. It's actually quite hysterical in an insane kinda way.

-Mindgame

 

Red Line does claim that Water Wetter does prevent corrosion and lube the pump. That is why you can use it in just plain 'ol water. This is a good thing, unless it freezes where you live. Also by keeping the oil hotter than the coolant it will keep the heat in or near the combustion chamber where it needs to be not the other areas where it doesn't need to be. I just thought of this last night, I think I need to do something else with my life because all I can think about is cars. Is there a support group or something?

 

Hi um.. i work in an engineering firm here and am a few feet from a handful of experts in fluid dynamics and thermo dynamics and allthat stuff i know nothing about (im the techie).
The few engineers here i've asked disagree completly with Fatkids argument based one the following (ill try and word it the best my computer *** can):

If water wetter reduces the heat transferring ability of the coolant or coolant mixture causing the coolant temperature to "go down" and the Block to "heat up" the block would continue to get hotter and hotter till the mixture DID heat up, until either A the car overheats or B the coolant increases with the engine temperature until an equilibrium is reached. This would mean, according to Fatboy here (with all 12 posts of his), that if the heat transferring abilities of the mixture were reduced, it would increase the overall engine temperature, and the engines ability to cool it off as well when it hits the Radiator.

In fact one of the guys was kinda pissed that fatboys defending this so vehemently yet has absolutly zero relable proof or statistics to defend his argument, and also because his whole argument disagrees with the laws of thermodynamics (err heat stuff) for the reasons i tried to state above.

Personally, i agree with the engineers here and they're ALL 100% confident in their anlaysis of whats going on here...

 

ever heard of pirate4x4.com?? if you havent, good, if you have, sorry. imagine a bunch of burly off-roaders who always think they're right.

 

did i not make it clear that I HAVE seen it affect the engine the way i have stated? do i need to tell the story again? BTW, post count means nothing, i may be a newbie on this board, but i can bet that theres **** that you have no clue about that you'd have to ask me. i could see you being pissed if i was just passing along all hear-say, but I HAVE SEEN IT.

thank you, please drive thru.

 

Does the temp sensor that goes to the gauge read actual coolant temperature, or the temperature of the head itself. If it read the temp of the actual metal, I think that would solve this debate. Just an idea/question, so don't waste your time flaming me.

 

if its working properly, it should read the temp of the coolant. no flaming necessary

 

I showed the post the engineer, he laughed and wants to know what that has to do with the argument hes trying to make... and to put this in:
Saying that stories don't hold a lot of water in his books..


Anyhow i'm just gona sit on the fence and watch When I listen to the guy it makes perfect sense.. so i've got nothing gainst water wetter as it stands myself...

 

Wow, so he's an engineer and now he's God. I work with some engineers that don't know their heads from their asses.

Think about this. If you want to transfer heat OUT of the high temperature sink you need to transfer more of it to the coolant to carry it out to the radiator to dump it. That means that for the same Cp (and WW's is supposedly actually lower) the coolant IN the block needs to reach a higher temperature to carry more heat out. Your temp guage located on the block should read HIGHER and a post radiator temp sensor the same in order to be transfering more heat and lowering the overall temp of the motor.

Does everyone here forget that the LT1 has a reverse flow coolant design making our motors less likely to benefit from WW than other automobiles. Is the localized boiling even really taking place???

This situation is to complex to settle by theorizing and the only way to figure it out is if someones measure some before and after with devices much more sensative than the gauges on your dasheboard. I'm getting really tempted to grab some RTD's from work and settle this but i really don't have the time.

Fact remains that you guys are argueing over a couple of degrees and if your cars cooling system has something major enough wrong that it'll over heat water wetter isn't gonna help.

P.S. I got an A in Thermo and occasionally deal with large heat exchangers at work.

 

I didnt say hes God. I said he makes sense to me. Does that make sense to you? He was referring to this post which i probably should have quoted:
Just because you work with some dumbsh!t engineers doesnt mean that you gotta discredit someone you dont even know.
I work with engineers that do know their heads from their asses and I dont walk around with some elitist attitude judging pple i dont even know. I stated what he said the best i could, put down a professional opinion, along with his reasoning. What's the deal with people flaming that?

 

All I have to say is look at this:
WaterWetter®
TECHNICAL INFORMATION
Red Line WaterWetter® is designed to provide improved metal wetting and excellent corrosion inhibition when added to plain water or a glycol coolant. The most poorly maintained system in an automobile is usually the cooling system. Maintenance is quite simple and only required once each year, but most vehicle owners never routinely change the coolant or replenish the corrosion inhibitors which are required for trouble-free operation. Proper cooling system maintenance is very critical for most modern engines which utilize more aluminum. Aluminum has a very high corrosion potential, even higher than zinc, which is very widely used as a sacrificial anode. The only property which enables aluminum to be used in a cooling system is that it will form protective films under the proper conditions which will prevent the uncontrolled corrosive attack of acids or bases. Poor aluminum corrosion inhibition will cause the dissolution of aluminum at the heat rejection surfaces, weakening the cooling system walls and water pump casing and weakening the head gasket mating surfaces. These corrosion products will then form deposits on the lower temperature surfaces such as in radiator tubes which have very poor heat transfer properties, causing a significant reduction in the cooling ability of the entire system. Red Line WaterWetter® will provide the proper corrosion inhibition for all cooling system metals, including aluminum, cast iron, steel, copper, brass, and lead.

Water has twice the heat transfer capability when compared to 50% glycol antifreeze/coolant in water. Most passenger automobiles have a cooling system designed to reject sufficient heat under normal operating conditions using a 50/50 glycol solution in water. However, in racing applications, the use of water and WaterWetter® will enable the use of smaller radiator systems, which means less frontal drag, and it will also reduce cylinder head temperatures, even when compared to water alone, which means more spark advance may be used to improve engine torque.

BENEFIT SUMMARY
Doubles the wetting ability of water
Improves heat transfer
Reduces cylinder head temperatures
May allow more spark advance for increased torque
Reduces rust, corrosion and electrolysis of all metals
Provides long term corrosion protection
Cleans and lubricates water pump seals
Prevents foaming
Reduces cavitation corrosion
Complexes with hard water to reduce scale
COOLING SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
The conventional spark ignition gasoline engine is not a very efficient powerplant. A considerable amount of the available fuel energy must be rejected from the metal combustion chamber parts by the coolant and dispersed to the atmosphere through the radiator. This heat rejection is necessary in order to prevent thermal fatigue of the pistons, cylinder walls, and the cylinder head. Another problem is that the combustion chamber must be cooled enough to prevent preignition and detonation. The higher the combustion chamber temperatures, the higher the octane number required to prevent preignition and detonation. Since the octane of the available fuel is limited, increasing temperatures in the combustion chamber require retarding the spark timing which reduces the peak torque available. Higher inlet temperatures also reduce the density of the fuel/air mixture, reducing available torque further. For these reasons reducing the flow of heat to the coolant usually reduces the efficiency of the engine. Figure 1 shows a typical heat balance diagram for a spark ignition engine. This diagram demonstrates that the coolant in an automobile engine must absorb and reject through the radiator 2 to 3 times the amount of energy which is converted to brake power.



THERMAL PROPERTIES
Water has amazingly superior heat transfer properties compared to virtually any other liquid cooling medium - far superior to glycol-based coolants. As shown in Table 1, water has almost 2.5 times greater thermal conductivity compared to glycol coolants. Mixtures of glycol and water have nearly proportional improvement due to the addition of water. Most heat is transferred in a cooling system by convection from hot metal to a cooler liquid as in the engine block or from a hot liquid to cooler metal surfaces, as in the radiator. The convection coefficient of liquids in a tube is a complicated relationship between the thermal conductivity, viscosity of the liquid, and the tube diameter which determines the amount of turbulent flow. Since 50/50 glycol solution has about 4 times the viscosity and only 70% of the thermal conductivity of water, the thermal convection coefficient for a 50/50 glycol solution is approximately 50% of the coefficient for water. Water in the cooling system is capable of transferring twice as much heat out of the same system as compared to a 50/50 glycol coolant and water solution. In order for a 50/50 glycol mixture to reject as much heat as water (amount of heat rejected is independent of the coolant), the temperature differentials at the heat transfer surface must be twice as great, which means higher cylinder head temperatures.

Table 1
Thermal Properties of Cooling System Materials Material Density
g/cm3 Thermal
Conductivity
Watt/m · °C Thermal
Convection
Watt/m · °C Heat
Capacity
cal/g · °C Heat of
Vaporization
cal/g
Water 1.000 0.60 1829 1.000 539
Glycol 1.114 0.25 ------ 0.573 226
50/50 1.059 0.41 897 0.836 374

Aluminum 2.70 155 0.225
Cast Iron 7.25 58 0.119
Copper 8.93 384 0.093
Brass 8.40 113 0.091
Ceramics 1 - 10
Air .0013 .026 0.240


HEAT TRANSFER
Red Line WaterWetter® can reduce cooling system temperatures compared to glycol solutions and even plain water. Water has excellent heat transfer properties in its liquid state, but very high surface tension makes it difficult to release water vapor from the metal surface. Under heavy load conditions, much of the heat in the cylinder head is transferred by localized boiling at hot spots, even though the bulk of the cooling solution is below the boiling point. Red Line's unique WaterWetter® reduces the surface tension of water by a factor of two, which means that much smaller vapor bubbles will be formed. Vapor bubbles on the metal surface create an insulating layer which impedes heat transfer. Releasing these vapor bubbles from the metal surface can improve the heat transfer properties in this localized boiling region by as much as 15% as shown in Figure 2. This figure demonstrates the removal of heat from an aluminum bar at 304°F by quenching the bar in different coolants at 214°F under 15 psi pressure. Compare the time required to reduce the temperature of the aluminum to 250°F, or the boiling point of water at 15 psi. WaterWetter® required 3.2 seconds, water alone 3.7 sec, 50/50 glycol in water required 10.2 sec, and 100% glycol required 21 sec. Water alone required 15% longer, 50/50 glycol 220% longer, and 100% glycol required 550% longer.

 

Yes indeed, but keep in mind that that is Red Line's propoganda. I'm not disagreeing with that data, just saying that the tests I quoted way back there somewhere were carried out by independents. If you analyze the data, you should be able to draw some worthwhile conclusions for yourself. Even without a degree in engineering/thermodynamics.

The rest of this is just a matter of stating an opinion and feeling that you have to defend that opinion to the bitter end. Maybe a lack of open-mindedness but that is typical.

-Mindgame

 

Even if water weter did stretch a little they can't outright lie about their product, they would be sued and out of buisness already. All you people who are backyard scientists need to relax and just maybe give a company the benifit of a doubt that their product works. Unless someone here has a degree in this field then all your opinion is just that...Get a life and let the real pros do there jobs, I am sure thier is more to this then what the backyard mechanic knows. All I know is my car runs coller with it and no problems here....thats proof enough!!!!

 

argh! i am going to happily resign to this thread because i know what i saw...you all know what you saw. i guess my "tests" have turned to opinion (although i dont know how) and are invalid (according to most). whatever, use it, i dont care anymore! geez, this is like arguing with women...you cant win!