One more time, gents. When I do a search there are like a bazillion opinions in H&C section so I thought I'd come here and get the scoop. Water + lubricant/anticorrosive or water + coolant? Don't slam dunk me - I know it's been discussed a bunch but maybe there is a latest water additive that someone has had success with.

I will be doing zero winter driving with this car and the garage is heated anyway so I'm not worried about freeze.

BeCool radiator, Zirgo 3300cfm fan, going to Meziere 55gpm electric and March alt/ps setup, bagged the A/C and front runner when it threw it's second belt.

Best to all,

H20 + Watter wetter is best cooling mix.

Thanks mucho!

If you never see freezing conditions, just run water with an anticorrosive/lubricant supplement, as that is the best for heat transfer capacity.

You mentioned A/C. If you have a Vintage Air A/C underdash unit, you MUST use antifreeze. Reason being is that in a Vintage Air unit the heater core and evaporator are the same unit. Without antifreeze, the A/C can freeze the water in the heater core and rupture it. If you have a stock A/C box or don't have Vintage Air, that's not a worry.

Troy

I do have a Vintage Air Front Runner but with the way we drive the car and the times we drive it (hard, short cruise runs mostly at dusk and night), I'm just going to pull the whole front runner off, all the AC lines out, etc and plug the Super Cooler unit under the dash. We just don't need the AC.

Interesting point is that VA told me I could disconnect the heater core and just run the A/C if I wanted. Haven't tried it yet, but it sounds like I would have problems based on what you said about heater core/ac unit.

The car will be a fair weather cruiser for now and next year we may tub it, get a rollbar, some suspension mods and go racing. Just finished major mod's to a (don't shoot me) subaru turbo forester - now putting 400hp to the ground (awd at that)- it is a super fun sleeper.

So, the Chevelle now returns to it's original purpose - hard hitting street machine that everyone in this area pretty much already knows not to mess with.....we just want to stick to the utilitarian purpose now :D

Water + Water Wetter will do the job. If you want antifreeze, you can run 15% and that will work well for a car that see very mild winters.

Mike,
With the aluminum heads and radiator, I would be more concerned with corrosion than with cooling. I personally would run a 50-50 mix of Prestone and distilled water. Your setup should have no problems cooling and the Prestone will keep everything lubricated and corrosion free.
Just my opinion,

Thanks Bill. I hadn't thought about the aluminum corrosion part - was only focusing on cooling and rust prevention. The weak link so far has been the serpentine system. I'm hoping the electric high volume Meziere (55gpm) will stand up to claims that it will cool equal or better than the belt driven stewart. And with the Meziere billet construction, that's another potential corrosion point.

I called Red Line and ask about corrosion protection. I was told that Water Wetter provides more than adequate protection for aluminum parts. I have to admit corrosion of alum parts is a very minor concern for me. My bracket car's engine is all iron except the manifold, which is hard anodized and pretty much immune to corrosion, and the radiator.

Aluminum corrosion is a good point, but with a good lubricant/anticorrision additive you can still get away without coolant. Also, that's a good reason to run magnesium sacrifical anodes. Cheap insurace. I ran one in each head and one in the back corner of my intake. The magnesium is more reactive than your aluminum bits and will corrode first. Ah, the good old galvanic series... smile.gif

As far as running just the A/C and disconnecting the heater core, that's not a problem as long as the heater core is DRY. It's when it's filled with water and the A/C is on you run the risk of a rupture unless you run antifreeze.

Troy

Originally posted by 427L88:
H20 + Watter wetter is best cooling mix. I agree, doing it that way for a while, the water wetter DOES work. You only need a $7 bottle, don't waste your money on those $20 bottles I have seen in the parts stores.

JMHO, In Texas, I would keep the A/C and run antifreeze.

Originally posted by BillK:
Mike,
With the aluminum heads and radiator, I would be more concerned with corrosion than with cooling. I personally would run a 50-50 mix of Prestone and distilled water. Your setup should have no problems cooling and the Prestone will keep everything lubricated and corrosion free.
Just my opinion, I agree 110%.
We had a severe corrosion issue with our aluminum heads.
The heads needed alot and I do mean alot of welding to repair the damage.
Water wetter was used, but I have the feeling it has a short life span.
We used a water pump lube with straight water mostly.
With new heads and a fresh rebuild currently underway, this time around we`ll be using more coolant/antifreeze and possibly even a zinc diode...lesson learned

i personally use water + water wetter
-Jay

Originally posted by 69chevelle355:
i personally use water + water wetter
-Jay Distilled water (+ WW) is best.

How, exactly, does an A/C system get so cold that it can freeze a heater core, without having the humidity in the air freeze on the evaporator and plug it?

If your car overheats with a 50/50 mix of antifreeze and distilled water, there is something wrong. Not only is glycol coolant an anti-freeze, it is also an anti-boil.

The car doesn't overheat - just doesn't run as cool as I'd like. I top out at 205 when idling for a few minutes in the TX 100+ degree heat. Another factor though is that I recently got a 750 mighty demon, have dialed it in but it may still be running a bit lean. The electric fan may be a bit on the light side - Zirgo claims 3300cfm. It's probably close to that, but before the Zirgo, I had a VA Monster Fan (3700 cfm) and the Zirgo doesn't pull like the Monster did.

I'm slamdunking the front runner serpentine system and A/C in favor of a Meziere 55gpm electric water pump - figured the Mez would give me better idle/low speed cooling and probably be the same at highway speeds. I'll have to go with a March setup for my power steering and alternator - don't want or need the A/C these days.

I've also got four corner cooling plumbed on the Victor but I'm going to re-plump everything (cooling, fuel, vacuum) with Earl's Pro-Lite hose, black hard-coated fittings and some Jiffy Tites as well. Just trying to clean it all up and be as efficient as possible. The guys that finished the car up used to many adapters and reducers, and too many different colored and mfg's fittings.

Since I'm changing the water pump, I have to drain, flush and replace "coolant" anyway. I just wanted a sanity check on whether or not to replace the green 50/50.

Thanks,