Hey! I'm ready to pour coolant into that spiffy Cool Cats radiator for the first time. The engine, of course, is made of cast iron with aluminum heads along with the aluminum rad. So the question - what coolant to use? I bought but have not yet opened Zerex in the gold bottle. Is it worth the money to consider Evans? Opinions, please.

Dan

If this is the the LSR car, what to the rules say concerning antifreeze? Some sanctioning bodies state plain water only to reduce slip hazards if a car has a coolant leak.

Plain water has the best heat transfer rate, "coolant" has a higher boiling point.

Regular green antifreeze works just fine if changed on a 2 - 3 year cycle. The super off the shelf stuff only gets you longer time between changes, propylene glycol gets you a higher boiling point.

And, before others make a fuss, a question posted to an open forum is far different than a PM / email sent to a specific person.

First, happy to have all input. That is why I posted it as I did.

This is not for Mutt the Race Truck which runs water/Water Wetter as allowed. This question is for the 347 Ford stroker/Volvo that MXFrank built the radiator for. A couple of days ago I started the Volvo for the first time with the new engine but I only ran it for a few seconds as there's no coolant in it yet. I was about to pour in the Zerex when the thought hit me that there ARE options. For the price of Evans waterless we can change coolant every couple of years and still be ahead but I have zero experience with Evans and maybe it IS worth it.

Dan

The 60x series engines are iron block with aluminum head and aluminum radiator and they run the gold bottle Zerex. If it's good enough for them, it should be fine for your application as well. It's certainly cheap enough.

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I recommend Zerex G05 to my customers. It's also important to use a 50/50 mix, regardless of local weather conditions. A few good reasons why:

-G05 has the best additive package for an iron/aluminum engine. Because it's low-silicate, it does a great job of protecting that expensive radiator, too.

- It's the closest thing I've found to a universal product, as it also has nitrites to protect Diesel cylinder liners.

- As for why 50/50: the coolant does more than prevent freezing. It lowers surface tension to prevent pump cavitation, carries anti-corrosion additives, and raises boiling point. It's a much better choice than pure water regardless of conditions.

- I also like to add a bottle of Water Wetter. It further lowers surface tension, and includes a small amount of nitirite additive.


- Steer clear of non-aqueous coolants. Glycols, as you can tel from the word, are alchohols. Undiluted, they will burn. The flash point is around 230F which is easily reached in your engine compartment, as are potential ignition sources. Your cooling system and HVAC weren't designed to minimize fire risk.

That's what I bought so I guess I'll happily pour it in. I even went off the deep end and bought premix as it's made with (as far as I can tell) deionized water which is way better than tap water with less junk (calcium, etc.) in it. Also, it's REALLY 50/50 and I'm always guessing when I mix at home. Buying pre-mix is buying pretty expensive water but in this case I thought it was worth it.

Thanks all for the input!

Dan