Waterless coolant?
Turbo Mini Forums

Just been flicking throw mini sites looking for some piston rings and come across this on Somerford mini


Cherish your Mini with Classic Cool 180°

NO CORROSION-
No water means no corrosion. Water contains oxygen and acts as an electrolyte leading to rapid corrosion. Evans Waterless Coolants are non-conductive and contain no oxygen.
NO OVERHEATING-
No water means no overheating. Evans Waterless Coolants have a boiling point above 180°C which eliminates overheating, boil-over and cavitation.
NO PRESSURE-
No water means no pressure. Evans Waterless Coolants reduce pressure by up to 75%, eliminating strain on cooling hoses and other engine components.
Available to purchase from Somerford Mini Online Shop, NOW!


https://www.somerfordmini.co.uk/eshop/index...1&keyword=EVA00

What peoples thoughts on this stuff?

It's good stuff, we use it at work. Apart from being a damn site more expensive than water/antifreeze I can't fault it. You need to give you're cooling system a good flushing out before hand, the stuff we use has a cleaner that you run through the system first.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Fusion-Fabri..._homepage_panel

www.fusionfabs.co.uk



1/4mile in 13.2sec @ 111 terminal on 15psi

I seen on the website that they have cleaner but would they count after a full engine rebuild?

yhere's a great 'how to' in 'Mini World' not last edition but one before. It has to be flushed with their flushing agent as it ensures no water is in the system . Looks good , I'm going for it as it doesn't boil (180 degrees!!).

I have been looking into this recently, my curiousity awakened by recent full force marketing presence in all the magazines and even wheeler dealers.

Let me start by saying all is not what it seems! Some remarks:

Evans is really good at:

-preventing corrosion
-preventing overboiling (not the same as overheating!) on pre war non pressurised colling systems


Evans is not so good at:

-performance cooling!


Some thoughts on the latter; Water is a funny thing, it freezes at exactly 0C, it boils at exactly 100C, and has a specific heat index of exactly 1.0 . As you can see the behaviour of water inspired the scale of many units in physics

Instead of 1.0 for water, the Evans product being 100% glycol (3% water dilution allowed max according to Evans) has a specific heat index of 0.65 . This means it only has 65% the capacity of water to cool a source, in this case our engine.

But that is not all. Water at 90C has a viscosity of 0.31 cP , a 50/50 water-antifreeze mixture already has double that viscosity at 0.70 cP , the Evans product having a higher viscosity still. Although Evans do not specify their viscosity, emperical testing has shown up to 20% lower coolant flow rates using Evans instead of water. The second law of thermodynamics dictates that when mass coolant flow is lowered, a coolants ability to transfer heat gets reduced as well.

The above two elements lead to exactly what is seen when using Evans in real world applications.....more heat!!! Up to 25C more heat in fact than when running pure water, but hey Evans only boils at 180C right so running at 115C seems perfectly fine, no????

Indeed no! As we all know an A-series engine performs best at 75C - 80C coolant temp. Running higher temps seriously reduces power, and increases the chances of detonation. Up to a point where ignition advance needs to be drastically reduced, or octance massively increased. Running a mini at 105C requires 3-5 points more octane compared to 75C.

Also at what point in time (read temp) do valves start sticking in their guides etc. ? For this reason only well known MG engine specialist (including midget A-series) Peter Burgess explicitly states on his website to not use waterless coolant. Due to elevated running temps associated with this all warranties are void.

So what are the drawbacks in using water?

-corrosion
-insufficient pump lubrication
-freezes at 0C

Duh!

Two out of the above three can be easily cured by well known additives such as Redline Water Wetter, Motul Mocool, Amsoil coolant boost etc. What they do not do is provide antifreeze protection, they are however very good at preventing corrosion and have one more benefit:

They reduce the surface tension of water (droplets on a newly waxed car, a mosquito walking on water). Although this doesn't alter water's heat index of 1.0 it has substantial cooling benefits as it makes it easier for nucleate boiling vapour to enter the liquid coolant flow, reducing the chances of gas pockets and reducing coolant temps with about 4-5C compared to the already excellent performance of straight water.

For a summer only mini this is as ideal as it gets, in winter it means your core plugs pop out at best when not stored inside a heated garage

Water, the marketing sucks, it's totally uncool when sitting on a bar stool, but it's pretty damn good for cooling our minis

Edited by Evoderby on 12th Aug, 2013.

On the subject of coolant additives, I have found some evidence that the old school polymer anti-foaming agents used in Redline Water Wetter can cause a brown sludge in your cooling system.....just google 'water wetter brown'.....other known brands seem to rely on more modern technology.

It pays to do your research here before you order it seems?

Here are some links on water wetter testing:

http://forums.rennlist.com/rennforums/gene...a-heads-up.html

http://www.amsoil.com/shop/by-product/othe...ont%2frdcb.aspx



The latter link again clearly shows the benefits of water / wetting agent mix. It also shows that adding wetting agents to 50/50 antifreeze mixes results in next to nothing.

Edited by Evoderby on 12th Aug, 2013.

Good info, was looking at this stuff last weekend at carfest

Takes me back to the days of Thermodynamics at Uni...all makes sense as well.

I'm just thinking of using Comma G48 & Distilled water?

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing half of.

Comma and deionized water is fine corrosion wise. As far as cooling performance goes to reach the best compromise I would use 75% water / 25% G48 during summer which is still good for -10 antifreeze protection.

My car will be in the garage in the winter so -10 protection should be more than adequate.

Would you use de-ionised or distilled? I thought de-ionised would would encourage corrosion?

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing half of.

I think deionised is what Comma states should be used, in this case best stick to the rules set up by the one who produces the stuff

In your specific case (garaged vehicle) you could also:

- Run water + wetting agent without any antifreeze during the remainder of our hopefully hot summer
- Drain 1/3 of coolant in say October, add G48 Glycol for 65/35 mix for -20 antifreeze protection
- In May flush the system for water + wetting agent
- ....and so on

That is too much like hard work for me. 70/30% mix of G48 & de-ionised will do.

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing half of.