Has anyone tried or got experience of Evans or any other type of waterless coolant?
Given that one weak-spot of our cars is the coolant warning system wouldn't a coolant that boils at 180 C, does not vaporise or cavitate (Evans claims not mine) be a useful help in keeping that V8 from overheating?

 

Have a look at previous posts (Search / Adv Search).

e.g. by avos

 

I believe the biggest problem with waterless is the inferior thermal transfer properties of the stuff.
Not much point having a coolant with all the supposed advantages of waterless if it won't take the heat from the motor.

 

Did the change over 3 years ago. No problems what so ever. Changed my Hayabusa and 2 KTMs over to it as well. MGB is done too. XKR is next on the list. Runs around 250 - 300 to change over a car.

 

Probably one of the wort downgrades an owner can do to a liquid cooled vehicle. Avos switched his car over and aside from minimizing some potential environmental hazards from spillage, gained nothing.

The biggest drawback as mentioned by baxtor is the inferior heat rejection properties- ie the cooling system has to work harder to maintain the correct temp.This is the last thing one would want on a high performance, sporty cat.

 

The weak spot - and I'm not sure it is fair to call it that - is that the Jaguar V8 has a very low-content high efficiency cooling system which operates at a higher temperature than some other engines. After many years - in my case just over 20 - it's not surprising that some of the plastic and/or rubber pipes and fittings can start to fail and the loss of a fairly small amount of coolant can lead to a catastrophic overheating situation.

I don't see how waterless coolant would make any difference. In fact, as already said, by making the existing set-up work harder, it could make things worse.

 

Don't do it. You would be better off spending the money to replace every hose and connection given the age of the car. Most cooling system failures occur for three reasons: containment is lost such as aforementioned hose or system part, inferior coolant product and or mixing of said is used, inadequate maintenance. This is it. If you introduce a new chemical into the old system, expect hoses to fail. I have seen this too many times in laboratory, various types of plumbing and cars. Old materials respond badly to new chemicals. The coolant that the engineers specified for the car is what you should use outside of any design weakness; there is none here. Now there are many brands out there and some are good, others not so. Not following directions or good practices when using said product such as diluting concentrates improperly or with the wrong stuff like the garden hose. Finally, not following a good maintenance schedule of fluid replacement leads along with the former (good practices) to clogs, corrosion, scale, etc.

I can't tell you the number of times that I see old iron engines that have no clogging or corrosion issues even when they are very old and in need of rebuild. The reason, good product, properly used and serviced appropriately. Have also seen modern, well engineered cars have crossover pipe corrosion at 30K, scale, overheating such as Honda when someone used Prestone coolant to save $15 USD instead of the manufacturer' s product which is engineered to limit the electrolytic issues and is premixed with deionized water. Sometimes cars have engineering shortcomings which a product can improve, no doubt, however this is not much of a problem here. Another issue is with flushing chemicals which are seldom necessary and the fact that some of the flushing and water remain behind. It is better to waste new product and dismantling time to get it all out. In my xk8 the orange coolant is used and we opted for the product used by Caterpillar since it is very cost effective for a very high quality product. This is after every hose and connection was replaced.

If you follow the above, six to eight year service life of coolant is possible. i get even longer with my Honda; they use very good hoses. And, there will not be a brutal mess to clean out when you do the service. For safety I would replace all of our hoses every fifteen years unless they are in really good shape. Yes, the radiator can go eventually, but looking at it will give you a warning.

 

Money never played a part in the conversion to evans, and for me it does have several good benefits that I reported about on the forum which Mikey somehow has lost over time ;-)

My prime driver was to get a better protection for my “sport” engine when I bored it out to get 4.8 ltrs. not just because it was bored, but primarily for the extra hp I was expecting with my twin-screw kit, which more than doubles the original “sport” engine, so an immense extra heat load for which the engine/coolant system probably never was been designed for…

So that’s one major benefit I enjoy to the fullest now.

Another is that my rubber piping after 18 years of course slowly degrade, and of course the known header tank ruptures that can occur. Now I didn’t convert I for that, but now I am very comfortable and even dare to say it on the forum that I don’t fear a bust/major leak anymore. That is a nice thought considering the amount of power and amount of driving I do. Heck before I converted I did have 2 leaks when the system was hot (so pressurized), one never came back and the other did very slightly after while (the octopus connection one). As it was so little and I knew it wouldn’t burst or would leak I got lazy and repaired it only 1 year or so after. Of course you should repair any leak quick, but as I run the system pressure less there is so much time to deal with it, it feels pretty good.

That’s again another major benefit for me.

As I have worked a lot on my car, less lately I admit, every time I had to touch the coolant system I always spilled some stuff (either on me or the floor). The stock oat we have in our cars is very toxic, and although I didn’t think about our pets in 1st instance, it’s nice to know that they are safe now when they would tough it. For me I have been disposed to so much of the oat in the past I truly hope I don’t get anything from it.

That’s again another major advantage for me knowing that it wouldn’t kill me (or my pets) when I spill something.

I have converted a XKR 4 or 5 years ago, can’t remember exactly, also with a twin-screw kit, and as far as I know it’s still purring nicely around ;-)

I am really happy to have done the change 2 years ago and the peace of mind is strong, and am sure this conversion has already saved my new engine once.

It is not something I would urge anyone to do, for normal stock (or slightly tuned) it would still be ok to run the oat, especially if you don’t work too much on your car and renew some hoses/tanks. You have to weigh the pros and cons for yourself.

 

Thanks Guys, I put the new thread up this morning before I was fully awake and after a cup of Brain tea, realised this may have been asked before. I did a search and had a good read of the debate from 2012.

What got me thinking of this was a thread about some gauge that was used as an alarm to pre-empt the rather fast moving temp gauge if an overheat condition arose.

So I guess as you all have said there a few Pros and possibly more Con's so will most likely spend my money on new hoses.

 

@avos

If increasing waste heat load, the last thing that should be done is limiting the heat transfer ability of the cooling fluid. Additionally, something that I did in my E-Type and 67 Firebird was to increase the cooling capacity of the radiator itself. In these situations it was to help with basic design weakness. In yours you might want to consider this due to the modifications possibly exceeding the design limits and working range of the stock system. You might also see no leakage as you begin to dissipate heat more efficiently. Leakage is a sign of problems that need to be fixed. I am an animal person and share your concerns, however I keep it off the ground in the first place.

 

Thanks for the suggestions, and indeed the radiator (and waterflow at the same time) would be something to do, but I think you overlook the maximum heat load a water based system can handle, where I can now deal with much higher temps without getting into big trouble compared to water based systems. I would indeed have to upgrade my water based cooling system in a big way, so in that sense the evans was actually cost/work saver.

The pressure back then was always 1 bar (so standard pressure the coolant system, was under) as then the pressure cap opens, and this is of course form when the engine reaches the normal operating temp, so regardless of extra heat of a modified engine. My leaks had nothing to do with additional heat load other then a weak piping system (pretty common on our cars). I didn't have any coolant issues before I changed, other then 1 time when the thermostat failed.

Again I am not promoting Evans, but it just does have some interesting properties which will workout for some considered on my experience now.


Something not really related, but funny enough the MD of Evans has become an enthousiast of the XKR. There was an article in JWM (Jaguar World Monthly June 2017) I only stumbled over early this week, a nice article about a car that was 1st bought by Stephen as a show car in 2011 for the Evans coolant, but later didn’t want to sell the car and started even to modify it after 2016 with some interesting mods. It’s a nice read but I can’t show it here of course. Attached is picture of the car:

 

In my experience (and with others who actually used it like I) it has shown more pros than cons actually, so it will definitely workout nicely for your car in your region. However to get all the water (old coolant) out of your system isn't easy, doable but requires some attention and prep fluid (so costs), so then you have to weigh it all.

 

Keep in mind that if the system is converted to operate at atmospheric pressure, there is now an exchange of moisture laden air with each heat/cool cycle. Any subsequent introduction of moisture into waterless systems considerably dilutes the capabilities of the coolant.

 

After 2 years now, still no significant moisture in my system (I do check it with a refractometer).

 

I agree that you are making some good points about maximum heat load and this is getting to the point where some engineering and modeling needs to be done. The only sticking point for me is that one of the reasons that we pressurize our systems is to raise the boiling point of the coolant. Additionally all of the coolants have a higher boiling point than water anyway. My concern is that the fluid has very good heat transfer characteristics which yours does not IMO. The more heat that you can transfer, the less heat load that you have to deal with. In other words it is preferable to have a more efficient system of dissipating heat than containing it. Water is very good for this although alone there are corrosion issues and freezing issues. With the kind of HP you are dealing with, it would probably make sense to entirely redesign the cooling lines to eliminate the weak points and be done with it.

In many competition cars, they must run straight water to eliminate the hazard of slippery coolant on the track in case of a rupture or leak. Many of my friends who drag race do the same for this reason and for better cooling. These are pro and semi pro FYI.

Basic physics says that if you increase cooling efficiency, your operating pressure decreases.

 

Water based has the disadvantage (next to what you mentioned) that you have to pressurize the system to increase the boiling point. As once it boils, there is NO cooling and these things can occur in hot spots with potential disastrous consequences. Now with Evans I am not risking this anymore, as my thoughts where that due to the boring out I could increase the chances for hot spots.

I don't have to redesign anything anymore, my system with evans is working with some extra benefits as well.

 

I can agree with your logic. Two things that I would caution. Heat without the added pressure can still cause differential rates of expansion in your connections. Higher heat than they were designed for could make things brittle over time. Since the goal is to dissipate heat, I would upgrade the radiator soon to make up for the heat transfer limitations of the fluid and to address the fact that the stock setup was rated for less capacity than your modified engine requires. Flow is not the most important contrary to popular belief and can defeat what you are trying to achieve in terms of cooling. The way to adjust flow is to measure temperature differential at the radiator inlet and outlet.

Since your system is open, it might be interesting to consider adding some type of desiccant to the venting port, perhaps a chamber of sorts with an additional filter to keep out other contaminants.

My preference is to stay stock with this car and run normally aspirated engines, however when it needs replacing a higher cooling capacity radiator will be fitted if possible just because it is cheap insurance.

 

+1.

Ironically one of Avos' goals in switching coolants was to reduce stress on several cooling system components, in particular that nasty hose that runs under the supercharger. Reducing system pressure might increase hose life from pressure induced issues but benifots might be offset by increased temperatures.

It's certainly not a cure.

 

I fully agree!

But where did you got the idea that I am going outside the design limits? My coolant stays well within that range and is only slightly warmer at some of the times.

It is not as open as you say, the system is stock, so pretty closed as you still have the overflow tank which holds back contaminants (and also contains a little fluid).

 

For arguments sake, even in worst case it would balance out, I never had the idea that I needed to give a longer life to my coolant hoses. Am pretty sure they will live longer now due to the pressure less state, but I really don't care about this.

What I do care about when it comes to the hoses, is that I will NOT experience a burst (pipes or header tank) like with pressurized systems, that's a very comfortable feeling.