Part of the reason I was interested in this thread is that I had some catastrophic damage happen to my old diesel van due (I believe) to heavy frost and a coolant leak which was compounded by me topping up with only tap water and not a antifreeze mixture.
This is why I've drained the coolant already and am about to put some Glycol down my pants before going outside to take the radiator off
I dont think i'd be happy running plain water in an engine for any length of time. I'd drain it down if i wasnt going to be using it for a while just to prevent corrosion. I've seen alloy heads almost totally eaten away in places.
That was my query rockhopper. I don't feel happy about running my bike on plain water since I have already had corrosion problems with it? I'm only doing trackdays next year anyway so it doesn't really matter, but surely theres something that can be used as a corrosion inhibitor?
For trackdays: Does not make that much difference as anyone running a water cooled bike will be running antifreeze of some sort (eg Do what you feel happiest with).
As a postscript I've obtained some waterwetter (without any instructions !!!) but am going for a recommended 5% cooling solution along with using the minimum concentration of anti-freeze that I can get away with - since my bike is only for trackdays.
Mood: Awaiting the arrival of the sun and the disappearance of the rain
Frank,
Riccardo Emiliani Proton in Lincoln sell 'Water Wetter' (or at least they used to when I supplied them with Castrol oil). They have a little offshoot business that sells performance goods for cars etc. It's related to Susie Emiliani being big into rallying.
Ask for Adrian Emiliani and say hi from me (Guy Cope). A.D. had a blade when I last saw him.
Guys, I raced the same bike for 3 seasons. The rules are VRY clear, NO antifreeze as you say and I try to play by the rules as I would be unhappy if I crashed due to someone elses's negligence.
One thing that no one has mentioned in the thread about plain water...I just went to the nearest petrol station each winter and bought a few litres of DISTILLED WATER. I ran this all year for 3 seasons, each winter the motor was pulled down, zero corrosion and no problems with water pump seals or anything, and it always ran at a perfect temperature. Try it!