There has been a bunch of interest about the radiator drain posting that I did, so Ill roll out this thought earlier than planned. My observations about antifreeze.

The coolent in the car removes a TERRIFIC amount of heat from our engine because if is only about 20 - 25% efficient. One horse power is about 1000 watts of power equivalent, so we get 330,000 usable watts with the consumption of about 1.2 Megawatts. Thats about 900,000 watts of heat loss between the exhaust and radiator, Pughey!

To keep it all together, I make sure that I always have between 60 and 70% consentration of antifreeze. This prevents corrosion and gives you the best gain in the waters heat handling capacity. Please note the photo showing the chart on the can. At about 70% you get the highest boiling point and the lowest freezing point.

I like this because I RAIRLY have the radiator cap at the factory settings because I keep cars and got tired of replacing radiators and heater cores because they wore out due to the pressure cycling they get when you drive them and they heat and cool. Thats up to 14 or more pounds of pressure to have to resist and the tanks crack or leak over time. Having the high boiling point allows me to run atmospheric pressure and on some hotties I run a 7 # cap if needed. My 1973 440 six pack challenger as an example.


Next thought is that the radiator is a closed system and it keeps going around, lots. I always add distilled walmart water 68cents per gallon. This eliminates the build up of crap from minerals, and please do not think that A WATER SOFTENER DOES ANYTHING. It only replaces one mineral ( calcium and or magnesium ) with sodium, aka part of salt, so you get bubbles from your soap.



When catching antifreeze I am sure to use CLEAN pans only and before I return it to the radiator I ALWAYS strain it every time even though I may have just done it. Doing this a lot now that the thermostat is almost ready for release, straining catches the crap that you would not have guessed is in the system.


That should help promote some additional thoughts, Enjoy.

Woody

 

Water is better at dissapting heat than antifreeze right? so wouldn't the 50/50 work better than 70/30 for cooling. sorry but i read it a few times and i got confused on where you were going with this one.

 

The correct antifreeze/coolant for all Crossfires is a HOAT (Hybrid Organic Acid Technology) coolant.

There are only a few commonly available coolants that are compatible with the factory fill coolant. (In the United States. I think that there are more options, including a BASF formulation, in other markets.)

1) MB part number Q 1 03 0002. 1 Gallon container. Owner's manual calls for this,or Zerex G-05.
2) Mopar Part No. 05066386AA. 1 Gallon of MS-9769 five year coolant. Part number from the service manual and Mopar chemicals guide.
3) Valvoline Zerex G-05 HOAT. Does not explicity meet MB 325.0, but Service manual says it is OK.

Zerex is the best price of the three, typically $14.50 to $17.00 at Pep Boys or NAPA. My local Benz dealer gets $22 a gallon for its magic cooling juice, and my local Chrysler MOPAR dealer wanted $28 a gallon for their propietary mix.

Unless the system is very, very, very, very, very well flushed of all old coolant, do not mix coolant technologies, stick with one of the above three part numbers (plus distilled water to fill the balance of the system) and you should be fine.

Click the image to go to my gallery page for the picture, which will then link to a (MUCH!) bigger version, sharp enough so you can read the mixing table on the back of the bottle.



NOTE: Factory fill is blue, Benz stuff is yellow or blue. Both are compatible.

 

Woody, I'm not sure where you were going with the hp/watts thing, but 746 watts make 1 hp. So your numbers are a bit off. Also, I don't understand where you get the 330,000 number. Are you assuming 330 hp? It's actually 349 hp. But what does the crank hp of the engine have to do with heat generation? Not all of that power is going to making heat, a lot of it is going to turn the crank. So I guess what I'm saying is that I don't understand what you're getting at here.

Another more general question (not directed at Wood, per se) but if distilled water is a better heat transfer agent than antifreeze, why don't we run pure distilled water during the summer months?

 

ok, well here goes:

746 is 1 true h/p but thats at 100% efficiency, 1000 is a input typically to go to 1 h/p output with conversion efficiencies.

330 is pretty much the same as 349 unless you are counting survivors of a plane crash. Engineering uses ROM for most evaluations.

The output of the motor is about 330 or 349 HP but thats only 20 to 25% of the heat energy of the fuel consumed, the balance on 1.2 megawatts is lost into the environment without providing meaningful work. The radiator has a real task to reject this much heat and the coolent is critical to this effort, thus it needs to be clean, and at a good consentration to avoid corrosion.

Distilled water can not prevent corrosion as well as antifreeze and the water is used to provide cooling of the motor by transfering the heat to the radiator.

Point (s) were that you can gain benefit by having a higher consentration of antifreeze up to 70% typically (100% freezes at about 0 degrees F).

Reusing the antifreeze is ok but always strain it and when adding water always use only distilled water to avoid the minerals in tap water.

You should consider getting an antifreeze gauge to check the consentration to know what you really have.

Enjoy, Woody

ROM is rough order of magnitude sort of like a wag or wild *** guess.