re: Glycol and cooling system corrosion

[Joe Elliott <jee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 2:35 AM +0000 7/28/03, alfa-digest wrote:
> Generally, there is no advantage to using less than 45% glycol in a modern
> street car. You get better performance with up to 60% glycol due to the
> higher boiling point, even though the conductivity will be lower, the
> higher temperature obtainable will lead to better cooling.
I'm going to be changing the coolant in my car sometime within the 
next couple of weeks.  In the past I've run 60% water / 40% glycol 
with bottle of WaterWetter.

Will going to 60% glycol actually make the engine run consistently 
hotter?  It seems to me it would just compromise the cooling system, 
so thermostat would open sooner and the fan would turn on sooner, and 
I suppose it would stay hot longer before it got cool enough to shut 
the fans down, but the system is designed to run at a certain 
temperature, and I can't imagine changing the coolant mixture would 
change that.  The lower thermal conductivity would just make it 
hardter to maintain that desired temperature.

I suppose you could go to a higher-temp thermostat and fan switch, in 
which case you might be running so hot that water would boil, 
justifying a higher proportion of glycol in the coolant mix, but 
unless you make those mechanical mods, wouldn't you want to as little 
glycol as you could get away with?

Joe Elliott
'82 GTV-6
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