Coolant questions…

[Daryl]

Green? Orange?? Does it matter?

I plan on running a 50/50 mix when I get the Mishimoto radiator from Maximum95 in the next week or so. Why? I’m thinking that because of where I live in SoCal, the coldest it’s gotten in recent memory was 30*. So, based on that, little to no chance of freezing/cracking as part of the antifreeze/coolant equation I would think.

And maybe I should consider going from the Mishimoto 180 thermostat to a higher temperature one (200? 210?, IDK). Need advice, past experiences and recommendations there…

I’ll probably use the same stock fan. It seems to work just fine so I’m not concerned enough there to warrant extra $$$.

I do have a question though:
To do a complete flush, correctly and entirely, how do I drain the block? Is there a plug or seal? The radiator is easy enough (just open the draincock, remove upper & lower hoses, empty overflow reservoir and let the sucker drain and drip till it doesn’t!).

 

[cobrajeff96]

By removing the coolant hose from the oil/water plate along the driver side front of the motor, that should do a pretty good job of draining the block. Run some distilled water through one of the heater hose ports and let it drain out of the afore-mentioned open port at the bottom to run out any scale that might be in there. Basically whatever the lowest point in the system is (I'm pretty sure the 4v motors have the thermostat housing as the lowest point, not sure about the 2v or pushrods).

Probably best to stay with the stock thermo temp rating, unless you're going hardcore with the car often. Then you'd go slightly colder.

A 50/50 mix is pretty normal and is what most cars on the road will use, no matter the climate. If the car will never see a sub-zero (sub-32*F) winter, yea run straight distilled water and a bottle or two of water wetter and it's done. But you'll most likely want a least a little anti-freeze because of the detergents and scale-reducers and they do help with boiling points to a small degree.

The OEM fan moves more than enough air, stay OEM as long as possible.

 

[shovel]

Regarding temperature regulation remember that the product of exploding hydrogen, carbon and oxygen is fizzy water also known as carbonic acid. Over time that likes to turn motor oil into forbidden cottage cheese. Along with a properly functioning PCV system (that includes the low vacuum/high volume side plumbed into your intake charge pipe) an oil temperature near water's boiling point goes a long way toward keeping that acid out of your oil and therefore keeping your oil oily throughout its lifetime.

 

[Daryl]

By removing the coolant hose from the oil/water plate along the driver side front of the motor, that should do a pretty good job of draining the block. Run some distilled water through one of the heater hose ports and let it drain out of the afore-mentioned open port at the bottom to run out any scale that might be in there. Basically whatever the lowest point in the system is (I'm pretty sure the 4v motors have the thermostat housing as the lowest point, not sure about the 2v or pushrods).

Probably best to stay with the stock thermo temp rating, unless you're going hardcore with the car often. Then you'd go slightly colder.

A 50/50 mix is pretty normal and is what most cars on the road will use, no matter the climate. If the car will never see a sub-zero (sub-32*F) winter, yea run straight distilled water and a bottle or two of water wetter and it's done. But you'll most likely want a least a little anti-freeze because of the detergents and scale-reducers and they do help with boiling points to a small degree.

The OEM fan moves more than enough air, stay OEM as long as possible.

Thx, Jeff (and Shovel)! Good info, both. Helpful.
The thermostat is up high on my pushrod motor.Will stick with same 180* then and probably run the 50/50 mix, but may get a wild hair up my back side and do 1 gallon of antifreeze and the rest Distilled Water +water wetter.

 

[Daryl]

Oops, 1 tiny little insignificant (!) question:

How much water wetter? Ratios? Etc. The whole flush and replace requires 3 gallons, yes?

Doh!

https://lmr.com/products/mustang-fluid-capacity-1994-1998

ON EDIT: will use the entire 12oz bottle of Water Wetter, as it states it’s good for 3-5 gallons

 

[cobrajeff96]

Not sure on capacity for the exact year/engine/coolant system but if you're running an expansion tank (not the same as an overflow tank) then just slowly fill until you get to the mark. How much liquid you decide to flush the motor with is a judgement call, but you won't want to reuse the liquid you flush with. Generally, just run liquid into the system until it runs out the same opacity it entered with. If it's the same color/opacity on the first go, then no need to continue flushing. Generally, there's no real need to do a complete system flush to include the heater core, it all gets diluted out with the overall system capacity. As long as you're doing a flush ever few years, it's really not a worry.

You'll have to ensure that all the air is burped out of the system though, which was always a pain on Ford V8s until they made the Coyote motor which was self-bleeding.

I usually just run one bottle of water wetter but in your case you could run two of them.

 

[Daryl]

Ok, just home from VatoZone and Grocery Outlet. Got 1 gallon of good old Prestone antifreeze/coolant, one 12-oz bottle of water wetter and 2 gallons of distilled water.

3 gallons seems to be the correct quantity according to the chart off LMR.

 

[ttocs]

I can tell ya that you do not want the mishimoto fan. I got one and it just was not keeping cool and after some research I think I found that it only moves like 800 cfm. I replaced it with one that said it did over 2k and suddenly there were no temp issues.