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automobile radiator fluid?

S

Skoobs

Weaksauce
Joined
Oct 4, 2010
Messages
90
i mentioned switching to water to some guy at my college and he said to use radiator fluid for cars. jokingly of course, but out of curiosity, what would this do? it is already toxic, so nothing will grow in it haha
 
in small amounts it will kill the creepy crawlies and it will protect you from corrosion
 
it has less thermal capacity compared to just pure h2o.
unless youre using a water chiller i dont really find it necessary. PT nuke is rather cheap, if not you can drop by lowes and get a bottle of fountain algae kill.
Or if youre super uber, you can make your own copper sulfide
 
naw, i ordered PT nuke when i ordered my hose, which should be here soon.

i wonder what the specific heat of rad. fluid is. heeeeere google google google
 
Depends on the ratio of water to anti-freeze. Most ready to use radiator fluids are 50/50 mixes. There are many different types of radiator fluid too, Dexcool, classic green, low silicate green, etc etc etc. In a car these distinctions matter, but in a PC its probably moot. I would however avoid anything with silicates, instead using either GM Dexcool, or any other Organic Acid technology (OAT) no silicate coolant. Japanese auto brands typically use such coolant.

And I wouldn't use a 50/50 mix, instead 90% water 10% coolant. I honestly wouldn't use automotive coolant at all, as I don't see the purpose. If its an all copper system, just use distilled water with some silver strips (or PT nuke). My current setup is 100% distilled with silver strips...no issues 4 months in.

Anyways, good luck!
 
there's no chance for freezing, so no need, and less effective.

adding a little water wetter does make a difference though. (or it did for me)
 
Despite its name, antifreeze is also needed in cars cooling loops to raise the boiling point and prevent overheating. OTOH if your loop is near the boiling point you're doing it wrong. :D
 
Antifreeze was all the rage in watercooling for like a decade so you guys shouldn't dismiss it. It's great for preventing corrosion when mixing aluminum and copper parts. It's also an effective biocide. You can get several gallons for like 2 bucks so it's deffinitely the cheapest route.

I'd say it's best for a super cheap DIY job but it's hardly the most effective solution these days.
 
most of the early water cooling additive/coolants where actually pretty much just antifreeze in a lower dose
 
munkle said:
Well at the checker by me you can get 1.5 gallons for like $2.49. It's fairly cheap.
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you sure it isn't $12.49? straight anti-freeze in my area is between $12 and $15/gallon.
 
50/50 mix starts at $10. I would love to pay $2.50/gallon since I will be flushing my cooling system in my car when I swap my heads in the near future.
 
Coolant will not hurt your loop, like previously mentioned, back in the day it was "the" additive, next to Water Wetter maybe. People used have some pretty heated arguments about which coolant was the best thermally and in what ratio it should be mixed. If you dig around posts from that time I guarantee you will find "proof" that using coolant was better thermally then just plain water.

Meh, I've used pretty much just water for about 5 years or so.
 
Straight distilled water with some sort of biocide (a silver coil or a couple drops of a CuSO4 solution) is really all you need.

People used to use various additives because they lower the conductivity of the coolant, reducing the risk of galvanic corrosion when using mixed metals (aluminum radiators and copper blocks) in the loop. Nowadays most people just use all copper components to eliminate that problem.
 
Zepher said:
you sure it isn't $12.49? straight anti-freeze in my area is between $12 and $15/gallon.
Click to expand...

those are exotic formulations like DexCool or something. regular garbage Prestone (ethelyne glycol) green stuff is $2-4 a gallon.

there are however no advantages of using either types of antifreeze over regular old (and nearly free) water.
 
I used it in my system in a 1:15 mix with water and a couple drops of biocide a few years ago and it worked great. I never had any corrosion or growth issues and my temps were a fair amount better then air. Granted this was 3 Years ago when I still had a watercooled system, but if nothing else when done right it at least is not terrible.
 
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