Just got this stuff ive been reading about here on nam Water Wetter . Can you just pour a little of the bottle or whole bottle in your expansion tank to mix with old coolant, or do you have to change coolant and add to a 50/50 mix. The currant coolant has been in car for almost 2 yrs..Any help will be appreciated........Thanks

 

Good question.

 

cant believe nobody knows about this stuff. I just dont want to turn my coolant into some kind of chemical goo that will **** off my water pump/ thermo. A bunch of people on nam seem to have used it but its really unclear on details... Kinda having a bad day , my brother in law seems to keep hiding or loosing my 3/8in ratchet . Every time i change my oil I have to buy a new wrench , oh well one day ill find them all and have a garage sale

 

Water Wetter is 100% recomended. It pretty much does exactly what the name implies - it makes your coolant water wetter by reducing the surface tension. This doesn't necessarily increase the heat transfer capacity of the water, what it does do is allow the water to reach more easily into the nooks and crannies of your coolant passages, reducing the possibility of local hot spots. You may or may not notice cooler water temps (if you have a stock "buffered" temp gauge you won't notice anything), but the liklihood of having hotspots will decrease, hence the risk of pre-ignition will decrease, heance engine health will increase.

Water wetter also has anti corrosive agents in it, but you've already got that if you're running the water/antifreeze mix that you should be in your street car. The anti-corrosive additives are more for race cars who run water only in their cooling systems.

 

If my coolant was 2 years old, I'd change it.

I use Water Wetter in all of my cars. I fill the system with 50/50 mix of official coolant and distilled water plus the bottle of Water Wetter.

 

I have run it in a number of my other cars, and have been meaning to pick some up for the Mini this week, but havent gotten around to it.

You should be fine adding it to the expansion tank, its good stuff

 

I like Redline products but Water Wetter is really unnecessary in a modern engine cooling system regulated by thermostat and fan. Its effect is marginal. For example, if WW lowers the coolant temp by 10*F, the thermostat will close its aperture to slow down the circulation and raise the temperature.

WW is more effective when it's mixed with straight water.... ie in race car engines. The corrosion inhibitors in WW already exist in the coolant/antifreeze... therefore unnecessary if your engine already has coolant/antifreeze.

Sample test: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/red...%C2%AE-review/

 

Well, I'm not going to get into an argument over whether or not it works. If you'd like to see that, there are plenty of places to do so on the internet.

I can tell you that my wife's Z3 2.8 runs a mixture of 50/50 BMW coolant and distilled water with Water Wetter added. The engine driven fan has been deleted and the thermostat and fan switches have been swapped for lower temperature versions. It's been this way for 18 months now with no overheating, including while being caught with the A/C on in bumper to bumper crawling traffic out of Myrtle Beach last July 4th.

It may very well be a placebo effect, but until I experience otherwise, I'll continue to use it.

 

Water Wetter lowers the temperature at the "Head" where it make's the biggest improvement. Most temperature sensors are located farther up stream like at the manifold and it will not show the improvement on a water temp gauge. Its awesome stuff. I ran it in my 04 Super Charged Mach -1 with distilled water only and never had any predetonation even on 99 plus degree days ! The anti corrision value that it has is enough alone to use it. Aluminum blocks and heads beg for this stuff !

 

MiniPug -

True, when running with straight distilled H20, WW is effective. Track heads often use WW + H20 w/o coolant because straight water transfers heat much better. Plus, many tracks will not allow coolant because it's slippery. When a hose pops and spills on the track, it makes for beautiful crashes. But adding WW to a 50/50 coolant/water will yield marginal improvement.

Kevin -

If the thermostat and fan electronics in your Z3 have been modded to kick in at a lower temperature, then of course your coolant temp will be lowered. Did you isolate the changes and record the temperature, so to know what change yielded the improvement?

If you run WW with distilled H20 and no coolant, it would be effective. If you live where it's warm year round, deleting the thermostat is also a good option. I did this on my Audi when I lived in the desert... major improvement.

 

I didn't measure the change. It wasn't important to me. As I said, the merits and disadvantages are debated in many other places.

I live in Georgia; 98 degrees today and every day for the last 2 weeks or so. I don't believe in running without a thermostat. You can find sites to debate the pros and cons of thermostats as well...

 

Simmer down from 10:54 to 12:59 a mere 2 hours you won't get too many responses especially during work hours.
+1
I used a 25/75 mix of MINI coolant and distilled water. But mix the WW with blend not just in expansion tank.

 

water wetter or like products are highly recommended! Take it from a floridian that has seen noticeable drop in overall coolant temps in several vehicles (Mustang, G35, MCS). Use the whole bottle. Best results are seen with just water and WW

 

Thanks guys

 

If you want the same effect as Water Wetter for free, put a couple of drops of liquid dish detergent in the coolant. it does the same thing - reduces surface tension in the water.

Total waste of money, IMHO...

 

Dishwashing detergent will reduce the surface tension, for sure. But I sure as hell wouldn't put it in my cooling system.

Water wetter is really for those engines that are stressed to the limit and run hot. For your average Joe in average conditions, it's usually not necessary. If you need it under those conditions to keep your temps in line, then something else is wrong. That said, I do use it in my motorcycle along with the regular coolant simply because motorcycle cooling systems are marginal at best.

If you're going to put it in your Mini (nothing wrong with that), I'd change out the coolant as it's getting towards the end of its life anyway.

 

I'm gonna guess you meant MINI and you are excused

but I'll note that when I was concerned about the cooling efficiency of my 79 Mini I flushed the system heavily, added/replaced a 20% solution (recommended Mini mix) PLUS a half bottle of WW {Mini rad capacity is small ya know} and noticed: drum roll please

no change in running temps. {p.s. a central east coast Florida car ... about 95 today and humid}

Also put it in the 02 at 50,000 miles and noted no change there either.

I don't plan to buy it again . . . but it doesn't HURT anything

 

With the M7 180* thermostat I ran constant 179-181*. Added the WW and those temps dropped to a constant 177-178*.

So after adding the WW, I saw a fairly constand 2-3* drop. All temps as monitored on Scanguage II.

If it does more than just drop temps 3* all the better. Was only 6 bucks on sale at Advanced Auto....folks have been buying STP oil junk for years and still do, and I have seen first hand the actual damage that stuff causes to engines...

 

Exactly right.

Again, right.

I'm going to get into an argument over what "works" means. Is your goal to cool your engine down further, when it's already got more than enough cooling capacity to do that? Then WW will not work. Is your goal to reduce corrosion when you're already using MINI-recommended coolant, which basically will not corrode if you change it as directed? Then WW will not work. Is your goal to reduce "hot spots" in the head? Do you know you have these "hot spots?" Will you know if they are reduced? How?

If you want to run PURE WATER in your car, because you're going to be hammering it around the track and your car is overheating with regular coolant, then WW will keep the pure water from corroding your engine.

Why do this? Does your engine make more horsepower with a lower coolant temperature? My dyno experience says it does not.

To answer your original question, the Water Wetter web page says:
You can use it with your old coolant. But man, it's been in there for two years. Change it out!

--Dan
Mach V

 

Water Wetter works, but whether you'll know it's doing anything is a different story. Your thermostat and other ambient and driving conditions will determine your coolant temperature. And that's what your cooling temp gauge will tell you. What you can't know without special measuring equipment is if particular parts of your engine are actually running cooler. And this really only becomes important if things are getting so hot in the cylinder head that pre ignition becomes a problem. As compression ratios and hp (and heat) goes up in high performance engines, especially race engines, pre ignition becomes a limiting factor for how much HP one can extract from the motor. Water wettter helps reduce hot spots in the cylinder head and thus allows a motor to make more HP. In everyday driving, it's likely not going to make any noticeable difference.

 

No. It makes slightly more horsepower by not having to spin the heavy fan blade and fan clutch assembly that would normally be hung off the water pump. Plus the water pump should last longer by not having to spin the fan.

The Water Wetter, lower temp thermostat and lower temp fan switch are there to compensate for no longer having an engine driven fan. And so far, they have.