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It works really good with alcohol instead of water too. Its just a bit more complicated. Best set up for drag cars though
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Actually, water has a higher specific heat than alcohol. Specific heat is the amount of heat per unit mass required to raise the temperature by one degree Celsius. The specific heat of water is....
1 calorie/gram °C = 4.186 joule/gram °C
(which is far greater than any other common substance.)
As an example, the sspecific heat of Alcohol is....
1 calorie/gram °C = 2.4 joule/gram °C
which, is still good, but not nearly as high as water.
Alot of people, mistake alcohol as having a specific heat superior to water due to the fact that alcohol engines run cooler. That's due to the Latent Heat of Vaporization. When a substance is going to undergo a change in form (from a liquid to a vapor, in this case), it has to absorb a certain amount of additional heat from its surroundings. Alcohol has to absorb about 2 1/2 times as much heat as gasoline. Of course, the alcohol flows through the engine so quickly that it can't absorb it's full potential, so you end up with an engine running about 20-40 deg. F, cooler than a gasoline engine, depending on specific engine.
At least I assume that's why poeple get mixed up.
-matt