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“Engine Ice” Coolant ?


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Engine Ice is propylene glycol - there are other brands using that formulation - Sierra being one.  You can do a few searches and find the properties of it and anecdotal reports of how it does nor does not work.  One of the main attractions of it is that it's much less (described as "non") toxic than ethylene glycol but as long as one disposes of it responsibly that doesn't matter.  As for keeping the engine cooler I'm not sure it does much in that regard.  It's not just boiling and freezing point differences - the rate of heat transfer is what's going to keep the engine cool.  I don't think I'd pay $80 a gallon for it. 

 

If you want an economical way to change coolant, you can use the OEM coolant from a Honda car dealer.  It's the same formulation as Honda powersports coolant but the dye color is a bit different and it's way cheaper.  The last gallon of premix I bought was about $20. 

 

A couple of other thoughts - one being that IIRC they recommend not mixing the two coolant types, so if changing over you'll want to get as much of the old coolant out as possible.  The other is that water has a higher heat transfer rate than either ethylne or propylene glycols, so using the OEM coolant add sufficient de-mineralized water to make it a 30-70 mix vs 50-50 - still plenty of freeze protection unless you live in North Dakota and enough protection for the aluminum parts in the system.  I've been doing that for some time and it's been fine. 

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