On Wednesday 11 June 2014 22:11:53 Gregory Ewing did opine And Gene did reply: > Steven D'Aprano wrote: > > Automotive cooling fluid in modern sealed radiators is typically a > > mixture of 50% anti-freeze and 50% water. > > Sometimes it's even more than 50%, at which point > you really have an antifreeze-cooled engine. :-)
There have been cases where that 50% may have been exceeded actually driving on the streets. At least 3 decades back, not too long before caddy came out with the northstar engine, which was rigged to get you home at a reasonable speed even if the radiator had been holed & the coolant lost. They used a wee bit of the knowledge gained from keeping Smokey Yunick is experimenting cash. He had an old VW Rabbit that was both a parts car, and the test bed. Two cylinder motor, I suspect built on a Harley 78cid crankcase, no radiator, no air cooling. Ceramic cylinders and pistons, it ran at a quite high internal temperature because the cylinders were insulated from losing heat by fiberglass blankets. It displaced 78 cid, made about 150 HP, and got well over 120 mpg running around in Daytona Beach. The one magazine article said it hadn't lost a stoplight grand prix ever but Smokey stopped that by making whoever was driving it, 100% responsible for any tickets it collected. It would have been gawdawful expensive to put it into production since those 2 cylinders & pistons cost more than the complete V8 Northstar engine. I thought it was one radically cool idea at the time. And I am amazed that something like it has not invaded the automotive world what with all the emphasis on both high mileage & decent horsepower caused by the high petro prices. Today I'd imagine a new cat converter might need to be built because at those temps and compression ratio's, I can see a hugely illegal amount of the various nitrogen oxides the EPA wouldn't tolerate. Cheers, Gene Heskett -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene> US V Castleman, SCOTUS, Mar 2014 is grounds for Impeaching SCOTUS -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
