Exactly...

But I get the concentrate (which is actually RED) and use distilled water to mix. You spend a bit less money per gallon instead of purchasing water.

50/50 mix coolant actually has less corrosive properties on aluminum than the concentrate stuff on average. But distilled water is a better thermoconductor of heat than just coolant alone.

SImple but easy from Goss' Garage



I'm not a prestone user, but they have a great tutorial about coolants.
(The more important information for US is at 4:50,) but overall its a great way to learn quickly and easily about coolants.


Then there's Evan's "waterless" coolant, and I'm curious about this for our cars and if there are any certain advantages.


I may try this on my next set of coolant changes.. See what happens.

 

Interesting thread.

As far as I know Mitsubishi LLC (long life coolant) is hybrid organic & phosphate type, and it is not supposed to be mixed with conventional silicate type as they can make some deposits.

Also phosphate types are known to cause scales when reacting with minerals in hard water, that is why Honda/Acura sells pre-diluted coolant so that people won't be putting any water with minerals.

Although many Asian makers use different colors, they are all phosphate-based, and that is why I use Hyundai LLC with purified water (available from drug stores). (Mitsubishi parts/chemicals are not available locally)

This is made by this local company and they recently upgraded theirs to 10 year/200,000km lifetime, although I change them every 3 yr or so.

http://www.jeyen.com/eng/product01.html

A-110 is the OEM for Hyundai/Kia.

Aftermarket coolant makers are using organic only formula to make it compatible to all kinds of coolant types, but I personally prefer to use OEM types as I am sure Mitsubishi used all the hose/seals compatible with Phosphate type coolant.

 

In the USA we don't have the issue with that since our water here does not have enough of those minerals that react badly with phosphated coolants. The main reason European manufacturers like Mercedes, Bmw, etc that came out with the phosphate free coolant was that out there they have a lot more minerals in their tap water that CAN react inadversly with phosphate coolants.

 

Good point.

I guess distilled water at Walmart was pretty cheap when I was in Nor Cal, so I think it would still be better use distilled water even local tap water is soft.

 

mega bump from the first time i started this thread - anyone start using this? (slowly) making preparations to wake the beast, i'm thinking a coolant flush is probably in order -


it's red, no silicates, hopefully no bad reactions with any remaining coolant but its probably best to do a full flush regardless

http://www.valvoline.com/pdf/zerex_asian_vehicle.pdf

 

a little info about the phosphate free bit I found here: http://prestone.com/enca/learn_more/...sked_questions

basically phosphates can have bad reactions with european water, but 1, USA doesn't have that problem, 2, they're used as corrosion inhibitors here, and 3, bad reactions wouldn't matter anyway with premixed fluid. If evo's can run the toyota pink stuff, they can run this stuff okay (convincing myself...)

 

I read through about half this thread and got frustrated. as usual not much real data you can sink your teeth into. I have tried a lot of things because my evo 1 just plain runs hot compared to evo 8/9 platform so here are some tips.

evans waterless. dont bother. tried the stuff on a fresh engine build. only way to try it.. you will never get all water out of block otherwise. I was hoping for that majic lowered detonation thresh hold. didnt happen,. what did happen is the whole engine compartment gets stupid hot.. worse than that forget trying to use a/c. it wont blow cold. so maybe this stuff works for race cars. it didnt work for me. from the consistency and what it feels like on the skin I thinks its just straight antifreeze anyway. . so that makes it way over priced junk if you ask me.

plain water works best period for cooling.

water wetter works. I saw drop of 10 degrees or better in logs. DEI radiator relief worked even better. its refreshing when a "snake oil" type product actually does what it supposed to.

water by itself will rust up pretty quick. with DEI or water water the results aren't much better.

all antifreeze works the same. its a lubricant and a freeze/rust protection. stupid arguing over colors and brands.

best mix is 20-30% antifreeze, water, and DEI. thats how I roll.

A higher psi cap also helps. but its harder to keep water sealed even with just going from 13 -16psi.

I dont have much tips on corrosion but my guess is when air is present in the mix thats when stuff corrodes very quick. and while cooling systems are designed to be sealed from any air. the reality is they rarely are. very important to check for air regularly. if you lift rad cap there should be 100% coolant. squeeze hose a tad and put back on without adding air.

 

it's tough to get real world useful data, so unfortunately it's mostly hearsay. IDK if they do analyses on used coolant, but as you have noted comparing temperatures is one way to test. I think we've determined as you've said: evans gets way too hot. water + water wetter is the best for cooling. It's everything in between that we're wondering about. I think zerex AV will perform well though. no silica, phosphates but that doesn't matter/is good for our cars, oem replacement for toyota honda some mitsus etc. like i said, if it works for the toyotas should be okay for our evos

 

When my Evo was new, it consistently sat right at 180F no matter what the conditions, but in recent years, I've seen it drift as high as 187F under a variety of conditions. On a hunch, I replaced the t-stat (with an OEM Evo 9 unit), and now my coolant temps are back down to 180F. A couple of questions for you - have you tried a new OEM t-stat? If yes, and it didn't help, then maybe look at whether an Evo 8 or Evo 9 t-stat might fit?

 

I was going to switch over to the Zerex coolant but before doing so I wanted to test out the RMI-25 since there was a lot of corrosion when I pulled the head on a motor that was 1500 miles old.

I drove maybe a hundred miles or so and a lot of heat cycles with it in and it really does work!

I thought I had a headgasket failure since there was so much contamination of the coolant in the overflow. The HG wasn't leaking and the RMI-25 was getting rid of the scaling. When I went to CBRD last week to check on the car I noticed that the scaling on the water pipe was almost completely gone!
When I had the head off I had to sand off some of the scaling and it came back pretty quickly when I put everything back together. Then I read this thread and decided to try it and then flush everything and go to the Zerex and continue using the RMI-25.

I should've taken some pictures.....

 

that's what i hear about rmi-25 - i'm gonna add a little to each of my cars and see how they respond. i had my evo's coolant flushed recently (car's now 8 years old and 25k miles) and it came out clean. Switched to Zerex AV but I'd still like to add a little RMI25 to the system. Did you add it to the radiator or can you just add it to the overflow tank?

Just FYI, it was a little hard to find but the freeze point of RMI25 is basically zero, so be careful when adding it to your coolant system in the winter. Apparently a lot of racing cars that use water use RMI25 as their "water wetter" (according to RMI25). I figure a little bit won't really dilute the mix as it is (50:50), and I should still be safe for our relatively mild winters (got to single digits, maybe 0 or slightly negative and it was a brutal winter)

 

Yup, you just need to move out here to Socal. I think coldest it got last winter was maybe in the 50s.

I would add it to the radiator. If you don't want the mess of the coolant spilling over when you pop your radiator cap, you may be ok to add it to your overflow, but it may take longer for all of the RMI25 to actually work its way through the system. I don't think the coolant system will draw back in any extra fluid from the overflow until it cools down after a heat cycle.

 

haaaa that's unfair. if i lived there though i'd just run water + this stuff.

and yea that's what i wanted to avoid. i'm okay if it takes time to get to the system, as long as it actually does get there

 

good information to know this a questions that I was asking myself along time.

 

I used it and we had a cold winter and I had no issues. You add just a few ounces to your radiator and drive as normal. It states to drive a few hundred miles and it will cleanse and prep the metal for bonding.
I would think the few ounces won't dilute the 50/50 mix enough to make a difference.

I was surprised at how well it worked, I would recommend it.