DEI Heater Hotter?

[Johnny248]

I was talking through the isle at the local parts store, and saw "DEI Heater Hotter" by Design Engineering. Same company that makes exhaust wrap etc.

Anyway, this coolant additive claims to improve engine heat up time by 50%. Is this possible? Can it work? I've used products like water wetter and stuff in the past that is supposed to help transfer heat. That being said, the idea of pouring something in my radiator that allows my heat to warm up faster in the cold winters sounds nice.

Any thoughts?

 

[NHGUY]

Its high time the Feds actually test these claims and confirm or deny them.Seems like anyone can claim anything (infomercials) without any backlash....although Splitfire and Slick 50 found out otherwise.

 

[gathermewool]

Unfortunately, an engine can only be so inefficient, with those inefficiencies being pumped out the tail pipe and lost into the coolant from the water jackets (for the most part.)

The flame-to-metal-to-water heat transfer can only happen so quickly, the driving force being the difference in temperature between the coolant and the cylinder wall. A temperature drop occurs across each layer between the cylinder liner that is in actual contact with the combustion heat and the coolant itself, driven by the thermal conductivity of each material.

So, even if a boundary layer were formed on the water jacket by this additive, the question remains: how is it actually increasing the heat transfer from the combustion in the cylinder to the coolant? Certainly, regardless of whether one performs a scientific heat balance (taking into account multiple heatups, while monitoring engine bay temps, coolant temps and exhaust temps,) a 50% increase in heatup rate would be ASTOUNDING and easily verifiable. So if this is true, why have we not heard of this miracle concoction thus far!?

 

[Rand]

upto.. is the key word..

doubt you can beat physics.

 

[Astro14]

Originally Posted By: Rand
upto.. is the key word..

doubt you can beat physics.


Yeah...fundamentally the waste heat from the engine warms the water...you can't change the fundamental property of latent heat (how much heat it takes to warms one gram of something one degree)...and this isn't changing the waste heat produced by the engine...so, lets see, zero change in waste heat, times, uh, zero change in latent heat, yields a change in time to increase temperature, of, uh, yeah...zero...

 

[Johnny248]

So is it safe to say that products like Water Wetter, PurpleIce, etc can not reduce the surface tension as they claim to help dissipate heat better also?

 

[RiceCake]

The primary design of Water Wetter and the like is to let you use pure water as a coolant without massive corrosion problems. Pure water is a better thermal conductor and has a higher specific heat capacity then a mix of coolant. In other words, it takes longer to heat, and should transfer heat better.

Does it reduce surface tension when added to regular coolant? I have no idea. I know soap can do that too. Its possible in doing so it would make it difficult for bubbles to accumulate in areas as the surface tension would be hampered.

But realistically I don't see that being anything worth paying for.

 

[Astro14]

Exactly. And please forgive me, i remembered the term wrong, latent heat is the heat in a phase change without change in temp...specific heat is the amount to raise one gram one degree...so, the specific heat of ethylene glycol is about half that of pure water. What the glycol does is allow a big decrease in freezing point for cold weather and a big increase in boiling point for hot weather. The glycol performs better than almost anything else in this regard. In the old days, alcohol was used to lower the freezing point...but the glycol has a higher specific heat, so it works better.

Further, pressurizing the system raises the boiling point. The difference in temperature between coolant and outside air is, all other things being equal, going to determine how quickly heat is transferred to the air...so, between the glycol and the pressure, you can have much higher cooling system temp, without boiling, which makes it much more effective in transferring heat.

What these products, like watter wetter, claim to do is increase the effectiveness of heat transfer from metal to coolant in the block and heads...it depends on the nature of the engine's internals, I reckon, as to how effective they are. I've tried them in the Packard with no measureable results. That car, by the way, runs a full flow, unpressurized, 20 qt cooling system. Air flow is regulated for warm up and engine temperature control.

 

[FL_Rob]

Using straight water with or without wetter produced the longest heat-up times for me.Using 50/50 EG, heat-up is about 50%quicker for me.

Stands to reason this stuff must be thicker than EG. Maybe a concentrated carrier similar to what some stop leaks use, without the stop leak particles.

 

[Astro14]

Originally Posted By: FL_Rob
Using straight water with or without wetter produced the longest heat-up times for me.Using 50/50 EG, heat-up is about 50%quicker for me.

Stands to reason this stuff must be thicker than EG. Maybe a concentrated carrier similar to what some stop leaks use, without the stop leak particles.


Your warm up time observation makes perfect sense based on the physics: fill the system with something that lowers the specific heat, the same waste heat causes a greater increase in temp....

 

[danthaman1980]

In colder climates you could skew your coolant mixture to about 60% coolant/40% water - that would reduce the heat capacity of the coolant causing it to heat up about 5% faster, and at the same time lower the freezing point.

 

[dailydriver]

Where is the mixture percentage 'breaking point' where too much coolant will actually RAISE the freezing point?? 70/30? 80/20??