supernig

hey guys as you guys know i had lost some coolant - once because i opened the cap and it spilled out and once because my car all of the sudden just pissed it out(still have no clue why). But i added pure antifreeze(yes i thought it wouldnt be a problem) and no water. I noticed the mixture had gotten kind of thick- before it was very low viscosity and very watery, but now its pretty thick. I've noticed that this indeed seems to cool my car better because it takes longer for my car to reach optimal temperatures, and it does make sense, the denser the form of matter- the better the heat transfer(or so i think). However, if it does cool the car better doesnt that actually decrease performance? I mean isnt the car built for a certain temperature range?

- If anyone knows anything please tell.

Tanqueray

You shouldn't use >50% antifreeze. Antifreeze has much lower heat transfer capabilities than water, meaning your engine stays hotter.

DarioManfretti

If I were you (and I'm not), I would flush out all that you have in the system and replace it with the correct proportions of coolant and water. I understand that it is bad for the cooling system to have too much anti-freeze in it because of the corroding factor of the anti-freeze.

supernig

ok thanks i was thinking about flushing it out. I'll do that now.

Utah S2K

Actually pure water has better heat carrying capacity then anti-freeze (i.e. ethylene glycol). Water however has no rust inhibiting properties and it freezes readily at normal environmental conditions. Either drain and refill your system or use a hygrometer to establish a 50/50 water to ethylene glycol mixture. Noteropylene glycol may also be used.


Utah

E30M3

Check out how cold it gets in your area, then set the mixture to suit. This means you'll have more water % which aids cooling factors. Water has a much higher specific heat than coolant. Yet the protection remains. Just follow the charts.. Some redline water wetter is a good idea too. Note that we are taling about cooiling for perfromance, which is not the same as avoiding overheating. Local hotspots encourage detonation/pinging which leads to spark retard and HP fade.

Stan

jschmidt

My thoughts exactly. Even a $2.00 hygrometer (the one with 3-4 different colored balls) will get you in the ballpark. Anything that varies much from 50/50 is disadvantaged either in heat transfer or freezing temp.

Thicker is an odd description of a mix with too much coolant. Your mix could be waaay off.

mister_two

I read from the miataforum that the proper way to add coolant is to pour the 50/50 mix, slowly, thru the radiator cap while the engine is running. Supposedly, this helps the system bleed the air out since the radiator cap is at the the highest point of the coolant circulation system. Does the same apply to our cars also ?

Tanqueray

That would only make sense if you didn't have pockets of air in the engine and other locations.

The Helm manual says to open two bleed points, to allow air to escape from the separate air pockets. If you take a look at the radiator hoses and the engine location, you can see that you could never get all of the air out by adding coolant...air gets trapped above the the hoses so that it can't bubble out without bleeding.

The miataforum advice may be ok if you open the bleeders and you already have enough coolant in the engine to keep it from overheating before you get coolant into the block.

E30M3

>>>Anything that varies much from 50/50 is disadvantaged either in heat transfer or freezing temp. <<<

This statement might be worth further discussion. As stated I'm not sure if I agree. "50/50" is pretty much a rule of thumb for huge land areas such as continents. You don't need 35 below protection down south most of the time.

Heat transfer increases as the percentage of water increases. You're safe corrosion wise if you keep the antifreeze proportion around 20% or higher. Or you could run 100% water in warm climates and use a corrosion inhibitor such as water wetter periodically.

Don't run over 50% antifreeze unless you live in an amazingly cold place. Hmm if you run 60% antifreeze your safe from freezing the coolant down to around 100 degees below the point where the SO2s become scary. In hot places it HURTS the heat transfer. Although the boiling point rises slightly, the same amount of heat unput leads to higher temps due to the net lower specific heat of the coolant mixture.

Suppose you added a certain amount of energy to three flasks of coolant, and the straight water went up 10 degees F. The 50/50 would g up MORE than 10 degrees! And the straight antifreeze would go up even more than that...

An example. If you run 60% water, you are protected to about -7F and won't hurt life or corrosion factors. Yet the heat transfer and capacity increase. Again, you can safely run up to about 80% water if you keep an eye on things and have the proper climate.

Not a big deal but a few little things like this and suddenly your car has an advantage over an otherwise comparable competitor.

Stan