Sunday BBQ

Well, in the summer here, it is constantly in the high 80's, 90's and very often 100+. I have always ran half water and half... whatever it's called... I'm drawing a blank... you know... radiator fluid stuff....

Since it will never get below freezing for probably about 6 months at least, do you think it would be ok for me to run only water in the cooling system? Any way to lower the temperature of the poor 3.slow trying to generate power in this heat would be peace at mind. Can I run into any problems doing this? What about running Wetter Water with it?

bike4miles

Water will rust the block so it isn't a good idea to run it pure. Antifreez makes the water non-corosve as well as preventing a freez. I don't think pure water cools any better than half and half. Conclusion, keep using half and half.

jimbo74

you can run only water if you use water wetter or some other racing approved type of rust/corrosive inhibitor... otehrwise. it will rust very fast!

toy283

It also raises the boiling point of the water. Keep running a 50/50 mix, even in the hottest of summer.

potroast

water wetter is good stuff.. I'd use it. But as said above, don't go all-water.

Sunday BBQ

Water has a better cooling effect on an engine then does antifreeze. Is that right, or wrong? I've alway been under the impression that waster cools better, and antifreez protects the engine from the extreme cold. So would it be ok to run 1/4 antifreeze and 3/4 water? I think that would cool it better, but not cause the block to rust. What do you think?

humanoid

Uhhhh, I hope you were just being sarcastic about using only water in your radiator. That "stuff" you mix with your water acts as a coolant (during the summer time) so your engine won't overheat and acts as an anti-freeze during the winter time. So by just running water only in your radiator you will have an overheated engine just by going to the mall or something. Not a wise choice. IMO, just keep a 50/50 mixture of water and coolant/anti-freeze in your radiator and keep it at the right level in your reservoir and flush and fill every 30K miles or so. Oh and by the way, welcome to the board!

humanoid

Water has a lower boiling point than does coolant and, I think, it absorbs more heat from the engine thus making it better than water alone. On the flip side, just using coolant isn't too smart either becuase if your engine isn't able to get to its normal operating temperature your may get premature wear in your engine as well as other other problems associated with that.

X-AWDriver

I ran a mix of 80/20 water to coolant ratio and a bottle of WaterWetter in my Eclipse during the summer and it never had a cooling issue in 8 years. This was also enduring 100+ degree temps at the drag strip plus the car was putting out about 150 more ponies than stock.
Just remember to switch it back to 50/50 before winter if that applies to you.

4RUNR

Right. But I doubt you would notice any difference either way.

Maybe I should go replace all the freon with this magical antifreeze

My99

I love the help from people who have no idea what they're saying. "You'll overheat just going to the mall." I put about 300 miles on my 90 after the engine swap running water only so that I didn't leak coolant out while i was chasing down my leaks. Didn't overheat once. If your truck is in good running shape, it won't overheat with water. The pressure in the system actually will raise the boiling temp of the water, while the thermostat should open before the boiling point anyway on these things I bet. Water can transfer/absorb heat much better than coolant, that's why it's advantageous. As others have said however, it's corrosive and can cause rust buildup. So I went to about 30% coolant, 70% water.

kenandjenn

A 80/20 mix is what I used to run in the summer in my Dakota while racing it. I also used about 2 bottles of Water Wetter since the Dakota had a 25 quart cooling system. I also removed the mechanical fan and ran with only the factory electric. I live in Alabama and no one can doubt our summers here. I never had a problem... I was using a 180* thermo and the truck rarely got above that... it did only if I sat in traffic for a while. It never got about the stock 195* then.

BIG NOTE: ONLY used Pure distilled water to fill the radiator! Tap water will cause corrosion.

I did agree all water is a big no-no, because the 212*boiling point could come fast in traffic Jam and that would be bad. A 80/20 mix raises the boiling point quite a bit... at least to 230+ degrees, which a well tuned good running engine should not see. Water Wetter will also definitly help!

TechWrench

Another reason for maintaining the 50/50 mix of anti-freeze and water is that many newer vehicle temp sensors will not function properly without the anti-freeze in the mix. I don't know specifically if the Toyota sensors are of that type, but the manual does recommend maintaining the proper mix.

cubuff4runner

I broke a hose on the trail a few weeks ago, I was able to fix the line, but we only had water to fill the radiator. We were able to completely fill the sytem with water, however we had to pull over every 15mins or so because it was overheating. We finally talked to somebody who had about a half a gallon of antifreeze and put it in. It ran fine with the 1/2 gal. So from my experience you can't run just water.

TDiddy

A mixture will always have a higher boiling point/lower freezing point that that of a pure solvent, chem 101.

X-AWDriver

I had a Palm datalogger and after a hard drive on a hot day my coolant temps never went over 205F with high180s to 190ish being the norm using a 180F thermostat.

mike_d

yup, that's true. but what really matters in cooling systems is the heat capacity. with a large heat capacity you can absorb more heat energy before the temperature rises. water has the largest heat capacity of any known material, so it can absorb more heat before it boils than antifreeze does.

however, we need to remember that it's not the antifreeze (or pure water or whaterver) that's keeping the engine cool. it's only purpose is to transfer the heat from the engine into the radiator where the heat is extracted. so if the antifreeze isn't boiling over or anything like that, then you won't get any real benefit from switching to water or something. maybe the water itself will be running cooler (because of the larger heat capacity), but that doesn't change that the engine is still generating the same amount of heat and that heat has to be extracted in the radiator. (actually it would be easier if the water temperature what higher because then there's a bigger gradient between the water termperature and the ambient temperature and you'd get better cooling in the radiator). the best way to run cooler in the summer to get a bigger radiator so you can get that heat out of the engine.

Highland Runner

From what I understand is water will carry more BTU's than a say 50/50 mix. Thats one reason not to run 100 coolant. When I flushed my cooling system last summer, I ran for days with 100% water. No problems at all. I believe the coolant containers say never use over a 50/50 mix.

dcampen

The freezing point depression part is correct but the boiling point of a mixture of two miscible solvents will be somewhere in between the boiling points of the pure materials unless you have an azeotrope in which case the boiling point of the mixture could be less than the boiling point of either.

TDiddy

True, I was thinking along the lines of solute and solvent, with the solvent being the water.