Water Wetter alternatives?

I run distilled water and Redline Water Wetter in my race car.  The water turns doo-doo brown after a few months thanks to the water wetter.  Is there an alternative that doesn't make the water look like E36 M3?

No, it's not rust.  Eventually happens on new, recently rebuilt engines with clean coolant passages as well.

Thanks.

I've run water wetter and haven't had that happen, maybe depends what you're mixing it with - I would usually mix it with Prestone Orange.

One alternative is Royal Purple's Purple Ice:

https://www.royalpurple.com/product/purple-ice-cooling-system-optimizer/

Another is No-Rosion HyperKuhl SuperCoolant:

https://www.no-rosion.com/hyperkuhlcoolant.htm

Edit: Do I understand correctly that you're running just Water Wetter and distilled water?

I've used Engine Ice for years without any complaints.

https://www.engineice.com/

I've been using hyperlube supercoolant. I chose it because it seemed to be the most effective option for use with coolant mix versus straight water. But IIRC overall performance was basically in line with water wetter. It's basically coolant color so shouldn't turn the water awful colors but I've never used it with straight water.

I've always heard two drops of dish soap does the same thing by simply breaking the surface tension of the water to help it cool.  Never tried it myself, YMMV.

-Rob

The royal purple stuff turns the same color. 

Paul_VR6 (Forum Supporter) said:

The royal purple stuff turns the same color. 

Thanks for confirming that 

rob_lewis said:

I've always heard two drops of dish soap does the same thing by simply breaking the surface tension of the water to help it cool.  Never tried it myself, YMMV.

-Rob

The key is to use liquid dishwasher detergent.  Regular dish soap makes suds, which you absolutely do not want in your system.  What I did on one car was this:  When the liquid dishwashing detergent bottle was empty, ("empty")  I filled it with water, swished it around, and then dumped it into the engine, along with the balance of the cooling system volume in water.  So it was basically free.  Seemed to work.  

Be careful about the water you use.  I read somewhere that some kind of water was bad to use- I can't recall if it was distilled...something about the polarization of the water molecules, or the existence (or lack thereof) of particles in the water and leeching from gaskets or something.  I don't feel like researching this right now, but I suggest someone do.  I usually just buy cheap spring water from Wal Mart for 69 cents a gallon and run that with either coolant or liquid dishwasher detergent. 

Also- when running coolant, unless you live in, say, a northern suburb of Edmonton, Alberta, a 40% coolant mix is perfectly fine.  Coolant doesn't cool as well as water, and its more expensive.  

I have used PhotoFlo with success.  It is basically like Jet Dry without the dyes and scents.  It's a sheeting/surfactant agent used in developing film and photos.  When you put film in the developing tank, you are using an acidic chemical to develop it and acids tend to be less-surfactant than water.  You risk having bubbles stick to the film and ruin the frame.  Adding Photoflo prevents that.  You can't use dishsoap in film developing for two reasons.  First, it's alkaline which ruins the acids in the developer, and second it can make more bubbles than it prevents.  Photoflo is pH neutral and doesn't have the extra stuff like dish soap or Jet Dry.

Linky

volvoclearinghouse said:

Be careful about the water you use.  I read somewhere that some kind of water was bad to use- I can't recall if it was distilled...something about the polarization of the water molecules, or the existence (or lack thereof) of particles in the water and leeching from gaskets or something.  I don't feel like researching this right now, but I suggest someone do.  I usually just buy cheap spring water from Wal Mart for 69 cents a gallon and run that with either coolant or liquid dishwasher detergent.

Probably deionized water AKA battery water.

volvoclearinghouse said:

rob_lewis said:

that some kind of water was bad to use- I can't recall if it was distilled...something about the polarization of the water molecules, or the existence (or lack thereof) of particles in the water and leeching from gaskets or something.  I don't feel like researching this right now, but I suggest someone do.  I usually just buy cheap spring water from Wal Mart for 69 cents a gallon and run that with either coolant or liquid dishwasher detergent. 

It's a bit of a moot point in my opinion.  Water itself is not a conductive liquid.  If you put distilled water in a beaker and try to pass electricity through it, it won't.  It's an insulator.  It's the dissociated solutes and ions of the things dissolved in water that make it conductive.  The motivation for using distilled water was derived from people thinking that galvanic corrosion can't happen if the water doesn't have anything dissolved in it.  The problem is, even before you turn the key, that distilled water has dissolved so much stuff out of the pores in the iron/aluminum/copper/whatever that it's no longer distilled water.  Some coolants specify using distilled water which makes sense.  Cholorine, Flourine, minerals, and other stuff in tap water could react with the acids in the coolant.

This is why nearly all of my vehicles get the cheap green coolant.  I call it Legacy coolant.  I fill it with a garden hose with city water.  If I use a fussy coolant that requires distilled water, to me that kinda feels like it's going to not stay healthy if the slightest thing happens to it. (looking at you, Dexcool) I'm also not going to carry bottles of distilled water around all the time in case I need a top off.

I use engine ice with great success, also I still use water wetter with Ford orange with good success. 

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

The whole thing with different coolant additive packages geared toward the type of water used in the area the car was manufactured is 100% why I buy premixed coolant.

The expensive antique car crowd uses Evans Coolant, but I like volvoclearinghouse's and Curtis's ideas better. Also, apparently it is OK if not beneficial to run straight Evaporust for a while, then drain and fill as discussed in this thread.