Project Farm tests coolant boosters/water wetters

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Missed oportunity. Cavitation, micro bubbles and bubble suspension. The reason to use it is to keep micro bubbles from forming on the hottest surface in the cylinder head and to eliminate any micro bubbles because bubbles do not cool. Cavitation is also bubble forming. When heat or cavitation generated bubbles collapse it is corrosive not due to the PH but because of the energy released by the collapsing bubble. Yes that collapsing bubble energy erodes metal. Example would be pits on a boat prop from cavitation bubbles. A cool example is watching cataract eye surgery. You think the needle is jack hammering away at the cataract but if you zoom in you see that the pulsing needle never touches the cataract. What is happening is the needle pulls back so fast that it generates a cavitation micro bubble. That collapsing bubble is the shock and energy that breaks up and erodes the cataract eye lens. I like the guy in the vid but unfortunately he missed every point of why to use these “water wetter” products. Pick a flavor and buy them.
I thought all of that was to have the impact of "increasing heat transfer" which his testing, while not ideal, showed? Adding the wetters increased the delta in to out of his heat exchanger showing more heat removed.
 
Absolutely. I can remember my thermodynamics classes. Thermal boundary resistance. One would have to suspect it as the limiting factor for heat rejection in a radiator and then test specifically for that property.
I thought the purpose was to "increase heat transfer" which his testing, while not ideal, showed? Adding the wetters increased the delta in to out of his heat exchanger showing more heat removed.
 
Why is he wear scar testing antifreeze additives? (Not important for cooling system.)

Why is he testing them for pH buffering? (My coolant does this.)

Why is he testing boiling point elevation? (My coolant does this.)

Project farm. Leading in nonsense.
Options vary
 
I thought all of that was to have the impact of "increasing heat transfer" which his testing, while not ideal, showed? Adding the wetters increased the delta in to out of his heat exchanger showing more heat removed.
They do work. I think the biggest problem is the way the book tells you how to change coolant. You wind up looking for engine block drain plugs and air beed procedures so people avoid changing it. I just pull the lower radiator hose and fill with as much as it takes and avoid the long procedure in the book. The gunk is usually settled in the bottom of the radiator anyway yet some procedures do not even tell you to remove that hose.

I may be wrong about today formations but originally those products were little more than non foaming detergents or “surfactants”. Same way soap flows away dirt the coolant flows better against the metal parts in the engine and the radiator. Getting rid of the microscopic trapped bubbles reduces friction to the flow and eliminates a hot metal surface that is insulated by microscopic air bubbles. That all leads to better flow and more heat transfer.

Another misconception is the from the name coolant. It does cool better when it is not boiling over but straight water cools better than antifreeze mix. Straight water boils and freezes so the compromise is adding antifreeze “coolant”. In my race buggy I only run 20% coolant with a bottle of the Redline stuff. I run a small fan on ignition and a big fan on a toggle switch. Only on the hottest days or on extended full boost do I toggle on the second fan until temps drop. Fans use electricity or a thermal clutch and that power that must be generated. That can rob 10hp plus so yes a properly function and clean cooling system can increase efficiency. Gas milage and pulling power is seen and felt if a fan clutch seizes for example. These marketers could advertise that these products save fuel and they do if the fan turns on less but then heads would explode.
 
I actually thought his mock up tester was very cool. But then he goes weak. More heat more pressure. Very weak!!

Then just insults the entire audience with an absolute disregard for any basic statistics presentation by summing 3 delta temperatures and declaring a winner. Arrrrrrrgggggghhhh!
 
They do work. I think the biggest problem is the way the book tells you how to change coolant. You wind up looking for engine block drain plugs and air beed procedures so people avoid changing it. I just pull the lower radiator hose and fill with as much as it takes and avoid the long procedure in the book. The gunk is usually settled in the bottom of the radiator anyway yet some procedures do not even tell you to remove that hose.

I may be wrong about today formations but originally those products were little more than non foaming detergents or “surfactants”. Same way soap flows away dirt the coolant flows better against the metal parts in the engine and the radiator. Getting rid of the microscopic trapped bubbles reduces friction to the flow and eliminates a hot metal surface that is insulated by microscopic air bubbles. That all leads to better flow and more heat transfer.

Another misconception is the from the name coolant. It does cool better when it is not boiling over but straight water cools better than antifreeze mix. Straight water boils and freezes so the compromise is adding antifreeze “coolant”. In my race buggy I only run 20% coolant with a bottle of the Redline stuff. I run a small fan on ignition and a big fan on a toggle switch. Only on the hottest days or on extended full boost do I toggle on the second fan until temps drop. Fans use electricity or a thermal clutch and that power that must be generated. That can rob 10hp plus so yes a properly function and clean cooling system can increase efficiency. Gas milage and pulling power is seen and felt if a fan clutch seizes for example. These marketers could advertise that these products save fuel and they do if the fan turns on less but then heads would explode.
For sure water is the winner, water + water wetter is ideal but I'm too lazy to mess with my daily vehicle and doing the drain/fill needing a vacuum filler tool etc. Then having to make sure I up the coolant mix for fall etc.
 
Just started the video - 2 minutes in. He should attend a basic college chemistry course if he wants to talk about pH and acids. But ok, resume at 2:10
What about that first part required a chemistry class? Seemed to make sense to me.
 
I wish he had tested just Redline water wetter, also no Amsoil products tested.

To make a claim that water at pH 6.3 is quite corrosive yet not mention pH 10 could harm aluminum shows a basic lack of understanding

Lastly rather than doing some silly tests, a basic compatibility test with 3 or 4 coolants would have been more useful
 
I'd like to see a test of a simple liquid cooled engine on a dyno (could be a generator with varying load) and then adjust the cooling capacity (fan speed) to compare the max, sustained power output without overheating. Very curious if Evans would pull ahead.
 
I wish he had tested just Redline water wetter, also no Amsoil products tested.

To make a claim that water at pH 6.3 is quite corrosive yet not mention pH 10 could harm aluminum shows a basic lack of understanding

Lastly rather than doing some silly tests, a basic compatibility test with 3 or 4 coolants would have been more useful
The guy knows little about coolant chemistry and then draws unwarranted conclusions based on his inadequate understanding. I find this typical of many of his videos.

Uses improper and meaningless tests that he then draws improper and meaningless conclusions which deceive a viewer. Not always but enough that I don’t trust anything he does.
 
Maybe we should add project farm to our new lake speed jr and dave forum. Allow the three of them to come here and post questions so that we can advise. It'll be great.


Fluid film vs Surface Shield vs Woolwax. I know, we'll do a wear scar test.
 
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I thought the purpose was to "increase heat transfer" which his testing, while not ideal, showed? Adding the wetters increased the delta in to out of his heat exchanger showing more heat removed.
No, the increased delta T shows an increased delta T. Nothing more. You don't get to correlate delta T to heat removal without doing additional homework.

He didn't hold enough things constant, so his heater core testing (the only functionally relevant test of the three) was invalid. He had no hypothesis, so he didn't know what he was testing. He just did some stuff and saw a result and all his viewers think it points to a conclusion. It's the same as practically all PF videos. Booster packs. Motor oil. Smoke alarms. Chainsaws. Paint brushes.

All he did was take the delta across the "radiator." Even if the airflow was held constant, he didn't control (or even report) the ambient room air temperature/humidity. The room could've cooled resulting in more heat drawn from the liquid.

The concoctions could've also had different specific heats. Correlating heat rejection to delta T only works if the specific heat is held constant.

To do that test correctly he'd need to say - the hypothesis is that water wetters decrease interface resistance at the water/metal interface in the radiator, increasing heat rejection. Therefore,

Variables - various coolant/water/additive mixutres.

Constants:
1) For a given water pump speed and thermostat position (correlates to radiator flow rate, so hold flow constant)
2) For a given engine outlet temperature (so hold that constant too.) So we need a big/immovable heat source at constant temperature and really good heat transfer INTO the fluid.
3) For a given air velocity across radiator (so hold air velocity, temperature, and humidity constant)

Therefore, we want to see highest heat rejection from radiator. So we either need specific heat * delta T for the coolant, or we need to measure delta T (rise) for the air.

Devils advocate, the coolant solutions that saw the greatest delta T across his radiator could've done so because they had lower specific heat, and NOTHING to do with surface wetting chemistry. Also could've been because the room was cooler. (Newtonian heat transfer - rate of transfer is proportionate to difference.) Specific enthalpy of air changes due to temperature, humidity, and pressure. He failed to account for any of this.

I would've gotten away with those sorts of oversights in my 7th grade science fair project. I didn't get away with them in my "engineering of experiments" classes.

See, poorly conducted experiments can be very compelling marketing. Motor oil forum, I expect more of you. This place is enough of a braintrust to recognize any of this. Back to the wear scar testing I guess, or perhaps another debate about LED headlights from amazon. Or maybe a good thick vs thin discussion.

@2:41 - LSJr"...It definitely wants a thicker oil." LSJr's Buddy, "sure, it needs more protection, right?" Comeon LSJr, if I gotta call out the nonsense on coolant additive testing, you gotta call out the nonsense on thickie speaks.

 
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