Coolant helps prevent corrosion. If you run straight coolant you will have more rust and corrosion inside the engine. Ask me how I know

 

@woot692 yes, you are correct, water does dissipate heat better than ethylene glycol...at normal pressure and temperature. at engine temps, 15psig (approx 1atm pressure), water boils at 250ish and 50/50 around 265. if water is at/near boiling, its not efficient, its changing to a gaseous phase. but yes, at normal, water has higher specific heat. i could go into vapor pressures and other chemistry crap, but im not that knowledgeable yet in chemistry...yet.

 

Someone already tried running straight water + water wetter because of a recommendation from a evo driver. The result was the water boiled constantly and he never had much of it in the radiator instead it was all in the coolant overflow tank. The engine is going to run at a certain temp no matter what because the thermostat regulates the coolant. When the engine coolant is a certain temp, it'll open, otherwise the it'll be closed.

 

wow, lots of misinforming opinions in this thread. awesome.

 

O'Rly? Specifically what are you talking about? At first glance, most of the information looks on point. What exactly looks like bad info?

 

I would never run straight water, the boiling point is nowhere near high enough even under a higher pressure cap.

I never said to run straight water. I said to run more water. Because from between 0 ehtylene glycol per part of water and 60% ethylene glycol per part of water, the boiling point is raised. 50/50 is a very good medium balance, but 80/20 boils much higher than 0% ethylene glycol and slightly higher than 50/50

 

so 80% water andf 20% coolant is the best route?

 

That or 1/3 anti-freeze 2/3 water. I'd like to see some numbers about the 20/80 though, seems interesting.

 

I gotta find the graph for it. But basically it shows how ethylene glycol reacts as you add more and less of it to a water mix as far as boiling point goes.

 

Give me a minute and I'll do some calcs on thermal conductivity and specific heat for various aqueous solutions of ethylene glycol.