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When the warm weather came out in May, I swapped my Intercooler coolant for Water and Water Wetter. It ran pretty good up until lately. The thing has been DRINKING the stuff. I'll fill it to the middle of the little overflow with water and/or water wetter & put the cap on. And if I race someone or get on it... it just drinks the ****... the next time I open the cap the ****** tube is dry. I've checked under the car... it doesn't appear to be leaking at all. Has my car just gotten inefficient as **** and is just boiling the water away? It's really pissing me off... I was at RACE WARZ last night with a Local group... and every time I raced I had to pour water and water wetter in my tube... and it smelled like Coolant outside of the car... but I couldn't see it leaking anywhere... if I just let it sit there and idle, the level wouldn't go down any... but if I romped on it, you can bet your ass it emptied itself.

Any advice? I was just gonna switch back to Dex-Cool today. But I don't want it to just start drinking Dex-Cool... that can become expensive.

 

Bummer. Good luck finding out the issue.

 

Any smoke? I think it might be burning it. Headgasket is usually the issue.

What if you romp on it and within the same minute park. See if that **** leaks anywhere.

 

The Intercooler Coolant is it's own separate system though. Totally separate from the coolant that runs through the block... right?

 

True. But if the intercooler has a pin hole in it it could be getting sucked into the enigine.

I'd recomend doing a presure test and finding the leak.

 

How would I go about doing a pressure test on the Intercooler?

Is the Intercooler covered under my Powertrain Warranty? I'm over 39000, so I'm out of the Bumper to Bumper... I'm just on the Powertrain Warranty now. I can see it being a very expensive fix if it's not under warranty.

And what about finding an Exhaust leak... I think I have one... a very small one... that only leaks when the car is under a load. I can hear the damn thing gurgling when I drive... could that just be the Empty Cat Canister resonating the sound? It only does it under load so it's not like I can start the car up... look under it and find a leak. Damn Cobalt is falling apart on me.

Worse comes to worse... I'll have my head gasket here next week... this bitch is getting tore apart this winter for my New Pistons.

 

I was under the impression the coolant ran through both the IC and block as one, all connected. That wouldn't make sense though as their is a water pump AND an intercooler pump indicating they are seperate.

Try pressurizing the system. Local parts stores sell pumps and such to pressure test radiators and the works. They also either sell or come with different connectors.

 

Hmmmm... I'll go talk to the guys at Advanced Auto, I suppose.

 

If i had too guess i would say the heat exchanger has a pinhole in it . If your smelling coolant i would get a pressure check done . If it's using water wetter/ water , it's going to drink dex cool too. The 2 systems are completely separate.

 

Dex-cool raises the boiling temp of water ,which I am not 100 % sure that water wetter does, and you are turning the water into steam and it is coming out the over flow and thats why you smell it after a run.I would put the dex col back in and add the water wetter to it.
The water wetter is only to increase the heat absorbing properties of the water and this would make the problem you have happen faster.
Put the Dex-cool back in.

But A pin hole is still possible.

 

My thoughts exactly... thanks.

Call me an Idiot.. but what is the PROPER way to do a Compression Check?

 

Pull the fuel pump fuse, crank car to get rid of all fuel in rail.
Remove spark plug from cylinder you are checking.
Plug in hose for compression pump.
Crank car over to where it cycles 4 times. ie, crank crank crank crank.
Record highest level compression created.
Replace spark plug.
Repeat for next cylinder.


Think I covered all the steps. If I didn't, someone will correct me.

 

NO NO not an engine compression test a cooling system presure test! All you do is fill it to the proper level then rent a cooling system presure tester which is nothing more then a hand pump that hooks onto the cap and pumps air into the system raising the presure and showing you where any leaks are.

OR you can make your own by taking the cap drilling a hole thru it (yes your gonna need a new cap!) Then get a valve stem that has the nut on it so you can tighten it down. Use a little RTV to help make sure its air tight and then just use a simple bicycle tire pump and pump it up to NO MORE then like 10 psi and then look for the leak.

 

Did you get it figured out yet and are you still coming up to Toledo?

 

I did the swap to Dex-Cool... which was odd. Because the car WOULD NOT pull the Dex-Cool out of the bottle... almost like the pump wasn't working . I finally got some Dex-Cool in... I did one ***** to the wall run and the level dropped again... there was no leaking in the engine bay... so I topped the level off again and went out for another run... can back and once again had to top it off. Went for a gentle cruise making sure I didn't really hit more than 10psi... came back level was fine... ***** to the wall, and the level dropped again. Once again, there were no noticeable leaks... although the coolant smell is coming from the Radiator/Heat Exchanger/AC Condenser area... topped it off one more time and beat on it... and the level hasn't dropped yet. I stuck my finger in to see if I could feel the coolant cycling through... and it did feel as if there was some flow... We'll see tonight.

Oh and Advanced Auto doesn't sell Coolant System Pressure Checkers... the guy was a real douche. The only advice he did have was: "Just get the car hot... that'll put the system under pressure... and then see if it's leaking." Well... it doesn't leak when it's just sitting there.

Worse come to worse, I'm going to go to the Stealership and ask them if it is included under the Powertrain Warranty.

Oh, also, I pulled the plugs... they are dry... and so are the pistons . So it don't appear to be leaking into the Intake.

 

Are you sure it is Not Bypassing you Laminovas & going thru you Intake 1 way or another this could explian why you smell it? << Just a Thought

It also on a slow leak would not hurt your plugs in the short term, It would actually clean them!

 

The stock system is only 5 psi and maybe allowing the coolant to burn off then escape. Have you been making sure to bleed the intercooler system after changing the coolant? If you have air trapped in the HE it will cause the coolant to boil and the steam can escape pretty easily since the system only holds pressure to 5 psi. Everyone I know that has bled the coolant on the stock IC system has said it takes literaly an hour or more of bleeding to get all the air out.

 

And how do you do that??? I used the how to in the HOW TO section and it mentioned nothing about how to bleed the IC Stystem:

https://www.cobaltss.net/forums/how-guide-43/how-flush-after-cooler-heat-exchanger-60948/

^^^That is what I did... this car is pissing me off. The level dropped again last night. My car is getting worse and worse... it's really slow right now.

 

To bleed the stock IC system:


Remove the bleeder screw which is located at the top of the HE on the drivers side.

Put in a 1/8" NPT with 1/4" barb fitting into bleeder hole.

Run a 1/4" hose from the barb fitting into the fill neck of the IC coolant.

Turn the car to the "ON" position and have the IC start pushing coolant through the system. Make sure that you keep the coolant level in the fill neck above the 1/4" hose or when you shut off the IC pump you may suck air back into the HE.

Replace the fill cap and bleeder screw. You will more then likely still have to add some coolant from time to time for a few weeks as more trapped air is still bled from the system.

 

+rep... what is an 1/8" NPT with 1/4" barb... where can I find? Home Depot? Break it down Barney style! Pictures are a plus!

I googled it... going to Lowe's in 5 minutes! Hopefully that is my problem.

 

Are you talking about the Radiator?

 

No...

 

yea if you didn't bleed the air out of the system at all then you're going to have alot of air in there. Your car isn't actually drinking or losing water, its just pushing more and more air out so you have to fill the air space with new water.

The coolant smell you get is because of all the air in the system. It's over-pressurizing and steaming off through the cap.

 

Did this start happening after you drained you dexcool and replaced it with watter and watter wetter?

If so its the same thing that happened to me when I did the dual pass and H/e it takes a bunch of time to fill in all the air in the system I probably had to fill a litre of water total after i filled it the first time.

 

That's what I figured it was... but I ran the Water and Water Wetter set up for a while before this started happening. My car is running slow as ***** as well. I'm losing to Stg 1 SRT's... running door to door with a Civic hatch that runs 14.5@94... and got spanked by a Ion that only had 2.9", 42#, and a tune.