anti freeze alternative

[fve]

I got the article regarding the coolant manifold from Chris (thank you!) and it was an interesting read. I had been following some threads on the various forums and was aware that it was an issue. there is a whole thread on rennlist (as mentioned by Glen) about it, but if you go through all 8 pages of posts there are only a handful of documented failures and a whole lot of general bitching/moaning on the part of most participants.

As far as i can tell this is an idiosyncratic (but potentially devastating) failure. The approach that has been advocated is TIG welding the fittings on the the manifold. It sounds good, but is it really a bullet-proof approach or will other problems arise. Before i commit to this i want to give the cars with this "repair" some time and see how they hold up. Regardless, i am considering it and may wind up doing it this winter.

for what it is worth, that article indicated that racing teams were unaware of this failure even though cup cars have the same gorilla-glued manifold piece. And, failures can occur on any of the old "GT1" engines with the ad hoc water cooling added to a basically oil-cooled design, including turbos and GT2's. lots of food for thought.

frank