Most coolants seem designed to be used at 50/50 these days. How effective are they (any?) at lower concentration? For a road/track car rather than use an inhibitor only, I'd prefer to run a glycol coolant at lower conc, maybe 25%. Any recommendations?
Best coolant at low conc
- Thread starter supercity
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Just make a lower concentration and test the freeze point. Coolants have anti corrosion additives, to protect metals and seals, water pump and head gasket, and they are using less capacity and higher volume through engines these days.
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Originally Posted By: supercity
Most coolants seem designed to be used at 50/50 these days. How effective are they (any?) at lower concentration? For a road/track car rather than use an inhibitor only, I'd prefer to run a glycol coolant at lower conc, maybe 25%. Any recommendations?
Your track lets you use glycol in any concentration?
Most coolants seem designed to be used at 50/50 these days. How effective are they (any?) at lower concentration? For a road/track car rather than use an inhibitor only, I'd prefer to run a glycol coolant at lower conc, maybe 25%. Any recommendations?
Your track lets you use glycol in any concentration?
Originally Posted By: Vern_in_IL
Just make a lower concentration and test the freeze point. Coolants have anti corrosion additives, to protect metals and seals, water pump and head gasket, and they are using less capacity and higher volume through engines these days.
The concentration of anti corrosion additives is what I'm concerned with. Lower concentration usually means a shorter life, too low and there maybe a lack of protection at any life.
Originally Posted By: kschachn
Originally Posted By: supercity
Most coolants seem designed to be used at 50/50 these days. How effective are they (any?) at lower concentration? For a road/track car rather than use an inhibitor only, I'd prefer to run a glycol coolant at lower conc, maybe 25%. Any recommendations?
Your track lets you use glycol in any concentration?
Yes, for what I do it has never been an issue.
Just make a lower concentration and test the freeze point. Coolants have anti corrosion additives, to protect metals and seals, water pump and head gasket, and they are using less capacity and higher volume through engines these days.
The concentration of anti corrosion additives is what I'm concerned with. Lower concentration usually means a shorter life, too low and there maybe a lack of protection at any life.
Originally Posted By: kschachn
Originally Posted By: supercity
Most coolants seem designed to be used at 50/50 these days. How effective are they (any?) at lower concentration? For a road/track car rather than use an inhibitor only, I'd prefer to run a glycol coolant at lower conc, maybe 25%. Any recommendations?
Your track lets you use glycol in any concentration?
Yes, for what I do it has never been an issue.
I wouldn't dream of tracking it, but I run 2:1 Water
restone(green) in the summer in the MG.
I rarely go more than 6 months without at least a partial drain of coolant for one reason or another, and 66% water keeps the temperature gauge from creeping up quite as fast when I'm sitting in traffic.
I do generally drain and go to 50% Prestone some time in the fall.
Granted that's not representative of modern applications-it has a 5 bladed metal fan bolted to the water pump pulley that tends to not move a huge amount of air when stationary. In fact, even though it seems counter intuitive, I run the idle at around 1K in the summer as-there again in traffic-the water pump doesn't move enough water and the fan doesn't move enough air at ~800 rpms to keep the temperature down.
restone(green) in the summer in the MG. I rarely go more than 6 months without at least a partial drain of coolant for one reason or another, and 66% water keeps the temperature gauge from creeping up quite as fast when I'm sitting in traffic.
I do generally drain and go to 50% Prestone some time in the fall.
Granted that's not representative of modern applications-it has a 5 bladed metal fan bolted to the water pump pulley that tends to not move a huge amount of air when stationary. In fact, even though it seems counter intuitive, I run the idle at around 1K in the summer as-there again in traffic-the water pump doesn't move enough water and the fan doesn't move enough air at ~800 rpms to keep the temperature down.
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