are all coolants equal?

[direwind]

Pure water, premixed, home made oh my!

I see so many types of coolant, ranging from filtered tap water to radiator fluid mix, what I would love to see is actual testing on a test fluids to see if any of them make a difference at all.

[Syntaxvgm]

just use distilled water or Peasant Tears. 

[PM97]

Heard from Jayztwocents that certain red dyes gum up radiators badly. Generally speaking distilled water is fine and it is the cheapest.

[Ghost]

Heard from Jayztwocents that certain red dyes gum up radiators badly. Generally speaking distilled water is fine and it is the cheapest.

Red dye molecules are the largest (atomically), meaning they will cause the most staining. The amount of dye you add would not cause gunking though. Just because the dye stains the gunk (as it should) doesn't mean the dye caused the gunk.

[Necrodead]

Distilled water has the highest heat transfer rate by a large margin, anything else is technically worse, but will not really affect performance.

[Sequence]

Mayhems Aurora 2 FTW haha most don't really make a difference at all.