Well I think 55% is a high amount of coolant, I'd hate to spend $25 on another jug of coolant for 1.2 quarts unless its necessary and the best choice.

The only good reason to get it besides having absolutely all fl-22 is to have more for when I need to top off in the future instead of using distilled water, though I've read youre only losing only water so putting more coolant will only raise the coolant concentration.

Man I think too much

 

..sorry I burped..never mind.

 

Wow, so much discussion on coolant. If it's green, I pour it in. If it's some other color, I don't. Easy.

 

Same! I just grab premixed (50/50) coolant from Autozone and use that.

 

right, just pour both 1.5 gallons in and top off with water and then worry about something more important, like breathing, or looking at ***** or something

 

I can see them whenever I want lol

 

Well that's obvious. You're on a computer.

If coolant mixture is so crucial, how do you explain that race cars can use 0% coolant?

 

Rules mandated by the racing organization due to how slick the track can be once wetted down with typical coolant. Most race cars run distilled water with a wetting agent like Redline water wetter.

 

You are correct. However, that's "why" they run without coolant. It says nothing about how they "can" run straight water in a system designed to run coolant. I purposely phrased it that way so it was asking the correct question.

 

Well these are race cars, not regular street cars. I really don't think a street car will benefit as much as a race car/drag car will , plus if you're running no antifreeze in freezing cold conditions I'd think it would freeze inside the block, unless using just water wetter will prevent it from freezing but I doubt it you can correct me if I am wrong.

 

They "can" because nobody cares if a race engine lasts for 100k miles. Race engines live in a whole different world than production units...they are constantly being fettled, don't sit around idling in traffic and have parts replaced at a much accelerated rate.
Basically, all the bad effects of not using corrosion protection (i.e., antifreeze) are still there but the parts aren't in service long enough for it to matter.

 

You guys comparing race engines and street car engines...you kidding me??
Race engines are broken down / inspected after every race and rebuilt. They don't need the inhibitors found in coolant because it doesn't sit around day after day..week after week.

Jeesus...

 

and holy s8*%t coolant is slippery! we were behind a brand new 911 turbo that popped a water hose (water cooling is a new technology to them) on the back straight and even going straight we almost did a 360...

 

only the pro's do that, there are thousands of club racers that go 2-5 years between engine rebuilds

 

Yea , but those club racers wouldn't be running just water when left in the garage.
That's my point. Any engine with any cooling liquid needs inhibitors. Not just water.

 

99% of them probably are just leaving water in there.

 

I don't know where I come off as advocating running straight water on a street car, but I didn't mean to. Sorry if I came off that way. I was trying to illustrate the capability of pure water to cool an engine in an extreme condition like road racing. Trying to end the heart-wrenching decision of whether to run 45% vs 38.54% anti-freeze. The weather and cooling system maintenance, will be bigger factors.
Just so everyone is on the same page:
Running some percentage of corrosion resistant additive is beneficial to an engine.

As for race car maintenance, I can only speak for 'regional' level teams that I know, but none of them will add coolant just to store the car and then drain it before the next event.
I could see people adding anti-freeze for actual protection against freezing temperatures, but not for engine longevity.

 

Really?
My background was in bike racing, we always transported the bikes dry (which was a requirement for international shipping) and stored them dry as well.
I'll concede that race bike engines probably get pulled more frequently than grassroots race car motors do (and it's easy to be cavalier about cost when you're sponsored by Redline) but even so, I'd think constant renewal of fluids would be the rule, not the exception.