RE>Water Wetter

["Chao, Harvey" <harvey.chao@xxxxxxxx>]

Steve wrote:

I am confused by the marketing hype of Redline's Water Wetter.  The
label claims that it will lower the temperature of the cooling system
water by some amount, 10 degrees or something, I don't have a Water
Wetter container handy so I am working from memory (poor as that may
be).  Can someone with some chemistry background explain how this
works?  My understanding of the automobile cooling system is that the
coolant temperature is controlled by the mechanical/thermal properties
of the thermostat, not the chemical properties of the liquid coolant. 
So is this stuff snake oil or what? 


As I understand things   (I "took heat in thermo(dynamics)"  about 30+ years
ago )  --

Be careful not to intermingle coolant temperature with heat transfer.

I understand that Water Wetter claims to improve heat transfer at the metal
to coolant interface, thus enabling the coolant to absorb more heat and or
at a faster rate.  As long as the thermostat and radiator can then radiate
the heat out of the coolant as fast as it is absorbed elsewhere, coolant
temperature ( and hence your temperature gauge) will show no indication of a
heat rise, although the internal surface temperatures (e.g. in the cylinder
head at the coolant interface) may indeed be lower because the coolant can
remove heat faster and carry it away to the radiator - but you'd have to
measure it at that interface location

Harvey.

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