Coolant for Whipple

[TooSoonJunior]

Getting ready for install this weekend, getting all my odds and ends together. What are most of you guys using for coolant?

Sponsored

 

[Highvoltage16]

Whipple suggested 50/50 water to the stock Ford coolant. I followed those instructions and still noticed that my CHTs were a little too high for my liking. I ran it like that for a while and even had a dyno day where the car made 675rwhp and 509tq. I thought that was respectable, but after three pulls the heat soak was obvious with the car only making 490hp. I drained the coolant from the radiator and whatever free flowed from the engine without flushing it and just topped it back off with distilled water. Now it's probably more like 80/20 or 85/15 water to coolant give or take a few with the coolant that was trapped in the heater core and engine. I also added a bottle of VP cool down. Old CHTs were consistently over 210 degrees and went beyond 230 after a pull. Now temps stay at 180 and rarely get over 200 even after a wot pull on the hottest days. It was evident on the dyno a year later when the car made 50 more hp with the change in coolant literally being the only difference. The dyno is inside a 75 degree air conditioned shop so the weather outside has little affect. Running stock manifolds and cats, just a Corsa axle back for exhaust, also Whipple supplied thermostat. Orange line is a year ago, green line is a month ago with Lower CHTs as the only variable.

 

[sigintel]

Awesome response! I had so wished I had done that exact test before I started other cooling mods just to quantify how much improvment was needed.
Great numbers from a coolant change!

Looking at coolant charts, it looks like running nearly straight water gets you a max 10-15% thermal capacity increase over 50/50 or straight coolant.

Look at Boiling Point, pressure and coolant mix charts to see what trade offs you want to make. Ill try n find some chart links to post.

Basically, you can gain 10-15% thermal density by running nearly straight water.
Downside is you run double the cooling system pressure once above 200F (including at head gasket) and have a lower boiling point. Once you hit boiling point/pressure, coolant flashes to vapor locally and may have 90% LOWER thermal density at which point the thermal run away accelerates exponentially. In other words, w straight water, its way easier to quickly, as in seconds, warp heads etc IF you do hit that lower BP either by excess temperature, or failure of cooling system to hold higher pressure. If you hit CHT 255F with straight water, you may quickly see 300+ quickly thereafter with just slightly more thermal input.
Also, water pumps dont move vapor nearly as well as liquid so cooling system is in deep crap once you are making vapor.

If changing to higher water content helps, there maybe other ways to get that advantage without sacrificing boil protection and coolant system pressure.

- adding 20% more airflow to radiator by removing rear coping, (free, 20 min)
- adding 15-50%+ more radiator by changing to PP/GT350 or aftermarket (500-1000)
- add 20% undersize water pump pulley or 20% OD crank pulley ATI damper for more coolant flow which offsets lower heat capacity,($75-300)
- remove 10% flow restriction of stock tstat at full open by switching to Reische 170. ($50)
- remove oil cooler venturi restriction by seperating oil cooler to its own pump and loop. The restriction is used to divert some coolant thru stock coolant to oil cooler. ($300)
- opening front of grill has limited benefit as the bottleneck is getting air out of engine bay from behind the radiator.

Added GT350 rad, Riesche 170 tstat, coping removal and went back to 50/50 coolant and run 195 sitting, 195-205 traffic with some excess throttle, 225 on very short road course running all out, 205-210 on longer road courses.
All at 90-95 ambient.

 

[TooSoonJunior]

Thanks guys. What coolant brand do most of you guys prefer?

I have read good and bad on adding water wetter, a lot of whipple instructions recommend adding it. Thoughts?

 

[Highvoltage16]

I went to the Ford dealership and got their coolant. I know it passed Fords durability testing and that's good enough for me. As far as water wetting products go, everyone has their own opinions. I read them all doing research lol. I went in with an open mind having never used a product like that before. Seems like the majority are having luck so I gave it a shot. I changed the coolant to water ratio at the same time so it's hard for me to tell how good the VP cool down did on it's own. I do know it isn't hurting. I actually drained and flushed my entire intercooler system and added 100% distilled water with a half bottle of cool down. That system also was a 50/50 mix at the time of installation. I can't monitor IAT2s but if it had that affect on the cooling system my gut says it's also made a difference in the intercooler system.

 

[FIVE_LITER]

I'm running motorcraft orange (the pink stuff our cars come with) in the radiator and motorcraft gold in the heat exchanger. Two different colors to help differentiate leaks if they are to pop up.

 

[VAGunny]

I am having good luck with BNDs coolant after just switching recently. I can't log my IAT2s to see what impact was made there, but my CHTs are down about 15-20*'s on average

 

[2-tone]

I run water and half a bottle of water wetter with my ice box setup. I would run some sort of antifreeze if I ran it in freezing temps. I do not think it matters a whole lot. It's just a pump and a heat exchanger.

 

[Jmeo]

You will want 50/50 distilled water/antifreeze if you live where cold winters happen like me in New England (Go Pats!) but if you live in hot areas you will be best served with a 70/30 distilled water/antifreeze mixture. You still want the lubrication of antifreeze so I wouldn't recommend less that 70/30.

I was using Ford Orange antifreeze with redline water wetter added but recently switched to 50/50 distilled water/BND coolant and have seen better cooling. I used to see 220º quite regularly and I averaged 210º even driving. Now I see 180º driving and 210 idling. Very happy with BND coolant

 

[Boosted5.0_NY]

Whipple suggested 50/50 water to the stock Ford coolant. I followed those instructions and still noticed that my CHTs were a little too high for my liking. I ran it like that for a while and even had a dyno day where the car made 675rwhp and 509tq. I thought that was respectable, but after three pulls the heat soak was obvious with the car only making 490hp. I drained the coolant from the radiator and whatever free flowed from the engine without flushing it and just topped it back off with distilled water. Now it's probably more like 80/20 or 85/15 water to coolant give or take a few with the coolant that was trapped in the heater core and engine. I also added a bottle of VP cool down. Old CHTs were consistently over 210 degrees and went beyond 230 after a pull. Now temps stay at 180 and rarely get over 200 even after a wot pull on the hottest days. It was evident on the dyno a year later when the car made 50 more hp with the change in coolant literally being the only difference. The dyno is inside a 75 degree air conditioned shop so the weather outside has little affect. Running stock manifolds and cats, just a Corsa axle back for exhaust, also Whipple supplied thermostat. Orange line is a year ago, green line is a month ago with Lower CHTs as the only variable.

IDK, dropping almost 200HP from 1st pull to 3rd pull seems like a huge loss to solely blame on heat soak from coolant type and/or mixture. I know you said nothing else changed but maybe something else was going on, issue with IC pump, air bubble in the system???

 

[Highvoltage16]

I'm pretty confident there was no air in either system. The supercharger had been on for about 18 months by that first dyno session. I checked the levels after every drive for the whole first month, squeezing hoses and shaking tanks to make sure there was no trapped air. Apparently its not that uncommon to see big decreases like that on a dyno. I've witnessed it on 2 S550s with VMP superchargers and even a twin turbo Mercedes. That Benz made 680rwhp and 790lbft on the first pull, fell a good bit on the second, and by the third pull made only 440hp. The airflow on the dyno is much different than on a street. You're at the mercy of whatever fans they have to keep your engine cool, therefore head temps increase much faster and drop much slower. We had 12 cars to dyno that day so we couldn't wait 20mins between each pull.

 

[Highvoltage16]

It's amazing how keeping head temps that much lower will allow, I'm assuming just from the hp increase, 3-4 degrees more timing. My car also lost HP on this most recent dyno day, but wasn't nearly as dramatic as a year ago. If I remember correctly by the third pull it was making 580ish.

 

[OrangCrush]

Anybody try Mishimoto radiator with their Whipple?

 

[Jmeo]

Anybody try Mishimoto radiator with their Whipple?

I have it, massive improvement over base GT radiator

 

[gsxr1300]

Anybody try Mishimoto radiator with their Whipple?

Me too, drive it 60 miles a day.

Sponsored