The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop water wetter??????

has anyone used it and does it lower the water temperature??? ron

Soap?
or something else?
soap works great for making water wetter, and washing stuff, best when used with hot water..

Grigg: WE b OLD is referring to a product by Redline Oil it is suppose to give the coolant an advantage of transferring heat more efficiently and lower temperatures buy about 30*.
I am about to try some in my 64 4000 I will let you know.

Right, I was poking fun, as ordinary soap is also a watter wetter.
I have no experience with the fancy stuff though.
Grigg

It is well known that adding anti-freeze to water will reduce the heat transfer ability as compared to 100 percent water.

Most racers will reduce the percentage of anti-freeze in their coolant mix, or run no anti-freeze at all. That's what I do in my track car. But if you run straight water, you need to add water pump lubricant, which is also what I do.

My take is water wetter's advantage is only if you reduce anti-freeze in your mix. My guess is you can get the same advantages more cheaply by running distilled water and water pump lubricant.

Having said that, I'm no expert and there may be something Redline is doing I don't know of. I do run their products in my transmission and rear-end. The watter wetter is not going to hurt anything, I would be pretty sure of that.

If you read Redline's brochure, they are basically saying Water wetter will let you run less glycol (anti-freeze), help lubricate the water pump, and reduce scale from hard water. I think you get all these things if you run distilled water and what probably is cheaper water pump lubricant. (Water pump lubricant you normally get from your anti-freeze mix.)

If your thermostat is working and the rad is in good shape how do you know if you are running cooler?
I am not sure if this is valid question or not? If the thermostat opens at 180 it open at 180. If you are having overheating problems I guess it would help.
Less glycol could cause some real problems up here in 5 months time or sooner.

no overheating problems but the gauge is reading high because it is reading the head temp because of a short probe. not a problem but just wondering. a review on the web mentioned the thing about the antifreeze so it seems to be a waste of money. ron

I'm using it, and it does work. I've noticed that my temp doesn't rise as much sitting in traffic as it did befroe I added it, stays pretty constant at 175, used to go up to 200-210 before. I'm running a 50/50 mix with the anti-freeze/water.

The round track racers here in Nashville are subject to BIG fines if they catch us using antifreeze- - - -too slippery if there's any spillage from an overflow can, or leakage from a broken radiator in a wreck. We use water wetter to lower the surface tension of the water and improve cooling. In normal use, the ethylene glycol in the antifreeze does the same job, so adding wetter to normal antifreeze mixes is a waste of money.
Jerry

Most of the performance guys I know use it and seem to like it. I've had no personal experience with it however.

We buy Shell extended life premixed coolant by the barrel for our over the road trucks. We never change it. If we have to add coolant, we add premix. Water passages stay new looking and I can't remember when we last replaced a water pump. I have operated trucks 44 years and have tried all kinds of additives. In my opinion nothing approaches premixed extended life coolant.

Water Wetter does NOT work based on empirical testing. It is a pure surficant (just like soap) and in theory should reduce the surface tension between the block and the coolant, however it does not reduce cooling system temperatures if added to a 50/50 mix. I have 10 runs on a NIST traceable dyno that indicate that the temperature of the upper and lower hose, engine block, and head did not change.

Adding Watter Wetter to pure water may have a different effect, however pure water has about 8% more heat transfer capability than a 50/50 mix, so the claims may be inflated as well.

Just my observations

Scott.

Scott, it seems very few people here are interested in results that are repeatable, and verified by accurate testing. It's a lot more fun to cling to long-standing prejudices and stuff my wife's second cousin's next-door neighbor said 20 years ago!
Jerry

My second wife's cousins next-door neighbor was a wise old Chinese man. He would often say "Deal with the faults of others as gently as with your own".


Stuart

I've used the stuff before when having "Running Hot" issues on my old pickup and it seemed to help a little bit, but not enough to justify its constant use, except possibly in a pure water situation... I found that a complete cooling system flush with replacement parts where needed (Thermostat, water pump, hoses, radiator cap, and possibly rodding or replacing the radiator) Always seemed to be the appropriate solution that ACTUALLY worked!!!
Laterz,
Gator
>|--|~

BTW, if anyone needs, I have the left over bottles from the test. Cant ship them, however would give them away.

Scott

i run a 50/50 mix ,,i use distilled water, not tap,, to the green anti-freeze