Waterless Coolants???

[andyhodg]

Has anyone tried using waterless coolants in their twin cam engine? I have come across a company Evans who market this stuff. According to them it is the best thing since sliced bread. They claim that it is very popular in the USA so maybe some of our American friends can provide some info.

It seems an expensive option with the total cost for a twink coming out at around ?200 which includes a "hydroscopic flushing liquid" to remove all the water from the cooling system. (just quote the brochure)

Any thoughts or experience would be welcome.

Many thanks

Andy

[pharriso]

They claim that it is very popular in the USA so maybe some of our American friends can provide some info.

Never heard of it!

[JJDraper]

A guy was flogging the stuff at Silverstone last month. Around ?90 for a twink + plus the flushing stuff.. Claimed all sorts of advantages in heat transfer.. Vaguely tempted, along with the rebore in a can...

Jeremy

[niagra]

Coincidently, there's a "Company Profile" of Evans waterless coolant in this month's (October) Practical Classics, p115. Apparently Jay Leno is a fan!

[elansprint71]

Jay Leno can afford it; snake oil is cheaper.

[twincamman]

just add pixie dust and you can fly tinker bell

[andyhodg]

Thanks guys, My initial though was snake oil salesmen, they have a big marketing budget judging by their sponsorship of CarFest. I always think more they spend on trying to sell it the less value in the product.

But I do have overheating problems in hot climates. I'm well aware of how to fix it but as always looking for a cheaper alternative. Its time for me to spend some money on upgrading.

Regards

Andy

[Matt Elan]

IMHO there is little point in filling up with expensive waterless coolent it if you have cooling problems as there will be some thing physically wrong with your cooling system. And once you've fixed the cooling system, I suspect the waterless stuff will probably not cause corrosion, but then so does decent anti freeze.

[andyhodg]

I couldn't agree more Matt

[saildrive2001]

I have a friend who used it in his twin cam 7 & now uses it in his Europa. One advantage is that because the boiling poiint is much higher than water he doesnn't use a pressure cap on his radiator, so the system is not under pressure.
I am going to use it in my Elan since here in Ontario with my S4 which is on Strombergs & with the original narrow radiator (recored to 3 rows many years ago) the temperature can get quite high if stuck in traffic. Maybe not a problem in the UK but with up to 40C temps on a hot summeer day here it is.
Stromberg engines run hotter than Webers in the first place & Lotus compounded the problem by fitting the narrowwer radiator to these cars.
This product also replaces the need for antifreeze.
Thsi & using a Petronix module will be one of the few departures from the original spec for my restoration.
Usual disclaimer that I have no contacts with the company.

[enskr]

I believe this stuff is propylene glycol, probably with a few anticorrosion inhibitors too.

"Normal" coolant that we use is a 50-50 (or 30-70 etc) mixture of ethylene glycol and water with inhibitors. Water is an amazing fluid from a heat transfer perspective, but in "tap" form it has impurities that contribute to furring up/corrosion, and rather inconveniently, it freezes at 0?C (32?F) which makes it unsuitable as a year round coolant. Hence we mix it with ethylene glycol and then it has a much lower freezing point. However, this actually reduces its efficiency as a heat transfer medium very significantly, as ethylene glycol is not nearly as good at convecting heat away, but overall we end up with a workable coolant. Trouble is that ethylene glycol is poisonous, and to compound the problem, it has quite a sweet taste, which has led to many animals and birds dying after licking up a coolant spill, which upset our friends in the USA when some of the victims were American Bald Eagles.

This is where propylene glycol comes in. It has fairly similar heat transfer properties to ethylene glycol, but is not poisonous. In fact it is so un-poisionous that it is used in shampoos, foodstuffs and even wine! (anyone remember the "antifreeze in wine" scandal many years ago?)
So propylene glycol has been mixed with water and used as antifreeze very successfully for many years. This new " Evans Coolant" takes things a stage further by using neat propylene glycol - ie zero water content.

It works, but the snag is that it is not a very good heat transfer fluid, which means that the metal temperatures inside the engine (bore walls, combustion chamber face, valve guides etc) will be hotter with this coolant than they would have been with standard 50-50 ethylene glycol- water at the same engine condition . The coolant will also be significantly hotter, meaning that it is possible to run a smaller radiator (since the temp difference between the coolant and air is higher, a smaller radiator area is required to transfer the same amount of heat) and since the boiling point of propylene glycol is about 180?C at atmospheric pressure, it is also possible to run the cooling system unpressurised.

I think this would all work OK in a normal road car where it is difficult to maintain high engine power for a long time, but I would be worried about using it in a race car, as the increase in metal temperatures could lead to problems. Whilst it's true that modern synthetic oils are wonderful at withstanding considerably higher temperatures than the mineral oils that the engine was developed with, there are still engine thermal issues, particularly combustion knock, which are greatly exacerbated by high surface metal temperatures.

I think the only way to fix this problem would be to pump it at much higher speeds inside the engine which would increase its convective heat transfer coefficient, but you would probably need a pretty large pump, and would probably then run into other problems such as metal erosion.

Kevin