Vlad's rides thread

[Charlescrown]

The Euro coolants were forced to change (don't know any specs or info) due to environmental regs and at the time the info I got was they were inferior to the products on the Aussie market. I tried red coolant in my lancer and could see rapid deterioration after a year so switched back to the traditional green and it's now been 3 years and the coolant tests fine so I stick with what the manufacturer specifies. Metallurgy and chemistry are not one of my strong points.

[immortality]

Been using Penrite 10 Tenths for years without to much issue.

It doesn't ever really freeze where we are so there is just no need for "anti-freeze" protection.

Water cools better than anti-freeze.

[Charlescrown]

Water sure does transfer heat better than coolant (look past the product BS) but it also boils at a lower temperature than coolant. I have see many Ford 6 cylinder heads all eaten away around the cooling passages around the exhaust ports caused by erosion due to the fact they recommended a corrosion inhibitor not coolant and boiling occurs in that area. Also seen many coolant pumps eroded in the low pressure area for the same thing so I will only use coolant and accept the fact it's not as good at heat transfer.

[immortality]

Yes water boils at a lower point than anti-freeze but the pressure in the cooling system does most of the work in lifting the boiling point.

MEhh, Fords and alloy heads....

Years ago I was talking with a engine cooling system specialist, I don't remember much but pressure and keeping the coolant moving so you don't get localised boiling was the takeaway to prevent all the problems.

It's also another reason why I dislike the factory trend of running engines very hot to get that extra bit of fuel economy.

[vlad01]

The Euro coolants were forced to change (don't know any specs or info) due to environmental regs and at the time the info I got was they were inferior to the products on the Aussie market. I tried red coolant in my lancer and could see rapid deterioration after a year so switched back to the traditional green and it's now been 3 years and the coolant tests fine so I stick with what the manufacturer specifies. Metallurgy and chemistry are not one of my strong points.

Partly correct, for health and environment, the main difference is the type of organic acid additive 2-EHA is bad for health for a few reasons and is thought to cause reproductive effects and many environmental ones too. The other main reason is literally for silicone compatibility as nearly all Euro cars use them just like many modern US and Asia cars do.

But Euro engines often have mixed metals, where Asian engines usually lack copper and iron in their systems and tend to be much more aluminium and plastic exclusive, stainless being also common.


Older techs and many Asian coolants have shorter lives due to using chemistry that is more or entirely sacrificial, just like our "aussie" coolant were sacrificial back in the 90s and required changes at least every 24 months or ideally less.

Given nearly all use HOAT or a version of HOAT now, it doesn't mean they are all the same as there have been many organic acid inhibitor types over the decades.

The Euro coolant looks on paper much the same as the general purpose green, same glycol content, same temp ranges, similar but slightly less life (still way more the the 2 years of yesteryear's coolants), same mixed metal compatibility, only it uses different organic acids to achieve this without having ones like 2-EHA that act as a plasticize on silicone and nylon plastics.

I see no reason why you couldn't use the purple coolant, and I am pretty much willing to put money on it solving the intake gasket issue that's plagued these engines for years.

GM's Dexcool had issues with plastics and seals degrading for years, to the point of a class action. Issues dated back from the 90s all the way into the 00s and iirc the 10s too.
That was all from using the wrong chemistry for plastics and seals iirc. This maybe the one and the same problem here.

[vlad01]

Well damn!

Sounds familiar huh?

Even lists the Buick as one of the affected engines.

Culprit, surprise surprise... 2-EHA.

The summary also mentioned conventional green coolant inhibitors that did not cause these issues are silicate or phosphate inhibitor based, both are the what the purple Euro coolants use an organic version of, a mixture of Si-OAT and P-OAT.

The data seems to back up that the Euro coolant is looking to be the right chemistry for the old Holdens and Fords alike for the matter of fact.

Screenshot 2026-05-10 at 22-12-16 dex cool class action lawsuit details on the chemistry - Google Search.png

[immortality]

I was wondering when you'd come back to the Dex cool debacle.

[vlad01]

haha, yeah eventually it seemed. But last time I read up on it, it never mentioned the 2-EHA or issues with silicone. But I do remember years ago that the whole thing was around the sludge and acidiy, but that is more of a secondary issue looking at the current info available.

So naturally I thought the Dexcool issues were unrelated, but something told me to sus it out again, and with AI search being way more thorough than normal search engines, it's linked me to much more comprehensive info that was all glossed over the first time I looked into it.

On a side note, I always got the brown sludgy coolant, even after a day or two of a complete flush, 100% of the time if I used Peak Green coolant which was the only green my local shops used to sell prior to covid. Once I switched to a different brand, that instatly stopped happening. Now coolant only comes out as clean as brand new, but the gasket issue persisted.

So, Peak green may have been the same chemistry as Dexcool or similar enough to cause the very same issues.

Peak would make the engine leak like a sieve from every hose and gasket you can think off. Was horrible coolant and now I have some understanding on why that may have been the case.

[immortality]

I used PEAK red for a long time in my old VN. Then went away from anti-freeze products.

In my L67 I've gone to alloy intake gaskets so in theory not so much of an issue. I run 10 Tenths in that one.

[vlad01]

I'll post up some pics latter, I looked at the old gaskets again more closely and confirmed that it's a swelling issue, which is also what causes the plastic to break from the expansion acting like a hydraulic wedge, splaying the plastic grooves until the entire section ruptures, the worst area of gasket still has it's silicone gelatinous. Interestingly, 3 out of the 4 coolant port areas have recovered and shrunk back to almost normal. Gave it all a wash and now watching to see if the worse one recovers any decent amount. My understanding is this was meant to be permanent, yes the broken plastic is, but interesting that the silicone appears to be able to recover to a point. That doesn't mean it will fix a leak changing out to a 2-EHA free coolant, in fact with it all out of place and then shrinking, it will likely leak even more.

But if caught early enough, it may save it from more serious long term gasket damage and allow it to return to a functional normal gasket potentially. This is what I want to try in the shitbox, swap the coolant out as it's still only early after repairing everything.

I chopped one old gasket up to get the less affected intake ports into 2 samples. I mixed up two containers, one of purple store brand and one of green Penrite that contains the chemical.

It may take some time to see the effects as it's all at a room or lower temp. Running engine temps speeds this process up significantly according to research I did. The higher the coolant temp, the quicker the chemical can diffuse into the silicone material.


I'll post up the pics of the recovery mentioned and some of the test subjects and setup. That will serve as the before pic.



In other news, I dropped off the bell housing to Duggan's for the rear to be machined. I ended up picking straight up and down as I am finding now I can have the axis leaning left to right where it was a similar amount and angle from right to left before. So on average it is more or less vertical. I gave a range of 0.13 to 0.15mm on my reference points on the measurement circle for the dial gauge.

If there is some error side to side, it should be well below spec and the up and down should be pretty much right. That should be ready on Friday hopefully. Then I can start fitting up the flywheel and clutch, box etc...



Also, my leads died some how on the car, despite being completely fine last time I drove it. Not one, but all leads were stuff from just sitting around? No idea how that can happen? All their resistance was way high and I could barely get the engine to run. Thought the plugs fouled with old fuel, but I had already replaced and flushed the fuel system with new premium and I ruled out stuck injectors. Eventually I said it had to be the leads as plugs, coils, injectors were all 100% good. Sure enough, some leads off the VR engine got it running nice. So I will order a set of new leads and some genuine plugs as these were well fouled that they still popped and crackled with the good leads, despite all running smooth and on all 6.


I was able to prime and do a full flush on the new PS system and well as confirm the new rear main was leak free. PS was also leak free and all good!

Flywheel balance was spot on and the engine was super smooth. no NVH that was out of place.


So there you go! the counter weight on these are indeed around the 160g mark and not the 35g or 70g figure I was given from other sources, well actually the 70g is what the bolt on weight was from the Xtreme flywheel, which is less than half of what was actually needed. So this shows how important mirror balancing is, as most of the flywheels out there other than factory are not correct.

Dellow appear to be correct as I have mirror balanced them before and they needed only single gram corrections, but they told me it's 35g. So I think it's physically correct on their flywheels, just I was verbally given the wrong info. The Xtreme was not correct, and even the NPC looked a bit out by the size and depth of the balancing hole they drilled, but was way closed than Xtreme. That said, the Xtreme flywheel is excellent in design and quality, so a small thing really. I wouldn't use a bolt on weight anyway because of the risk of them coming undone and flying off.



Ecotec must be well over 200g, maybe over 250g for the L67 going by the enormous counter weight they have spot welded to the flex plate.