Hi all,
How does the tranny cooler work inside the radiator? Is it a tube in the bottom tank or is it a seperate panel inside. I am haveing my removed and installing external tranny coolers and was wondering how it works. A pic would explain alot. Any information will be greatly appreciated.

Brad

 

Well in general the internal cooler basicly looks like a good extrenal cooler (B&M) but instead of air to cool it uses water/antifreeze. This water/Af mixture also helps the transmission to warm up quicker. Use both coolers and you will have better results.

 

SSC

Heres my question, how much heat does the tranny cause in the water, I have a Supercharger and would like to lower the water temp however I can. Removing the tranny cooler, will increase my quantity (sp) of water and remove the tranny heat. What do you think??

Brad

 

Bad, bad idea! Supercharger means more tranny heat, too, and you'll burn your tranny up that much quicker.

Sounds like you need a larger core radiator and a big external tranny cooler (in addition to the in-radiator tranny cooler).

 

let me explain better.

I have the supercharger, with the accel superram. As I type a 700R4 is getting built for me. What I plan on doing, is to have two external tranny coolers, remove the tranny cooler from inside the radiator which should lower my coolant temp, since the tranny is getting cooled from the external coolers. Also it should increase the water capaticy. This is my theroy (sp) I hope this works I need to lower the temp at least 8-10 deg.

Brad

 

I don't think so. One look inside the rad and you'll see why.

If possible, I would avoid using the one on the radiator though; and I'd try to find a place to mount the aftermarket one where it neither heats up the air that is about to pass through the rad; nor gets served by air that's already been heated by the rad.

 

I was going to have a shop remove the tranny cooler from the radiator. Also I am going to mount the tranny coolers and watch temps, if get too high then I must use electric fans to cool the tranny.

 

Damn dood, you are thinking too hard. Just run the one tranny cooler and be done with it. Mine runs fine, and 2 others with temp guages never get over 180 degrees with just one cooler. I bypassed my in radiator cooler and go straight to the external.

 

Yes it does lower the temp by about 10*. The extra quart water capacity gained by removing the internal cooler isnt going to do much. Quart being an estimate because the cooler isnt too big. If its going to be running hotter then normal then I would invest in a griffen radiator and a good aftermarket cooler with a thermostatic electric fan attached, probably a dual cooling trans & engine oil so the fluid will warm up a little quicker.

 

Yes this seems right, also remove one passenger headlight to let more air in to cool your water temperature problem, and lower the pressure in the right front tire to get some cooler air into that headlight.

No, really, don't think so hard about it. The tranny cooler is there to help cool the fluid, so let it be. Have you tried a low temp. thermostat? Maybe bigger, more powerful dual electric fans, oil cooler, just try little things first. Just curious, are you getting cold air ino your supercharger? That could be another thing that may help you.

 

as far a cooling, I know this isnt the correct tech board to post, but since you aksed this is what I have done. I have a '89 bird with ATI Supercharger with intercooler and a Accel DFI Gen VII+. I have a Mr. Gasket 160 stat., I built my own air damn for max flow of air, I disconnected the Supercharger bypass valve, (so the hot air doen't go back into the superchager, vents into atmosphere). I have the dual flex lite fans. My temp stays around 190. However when a Mustang tries to pass me, well now the temp goes to about 220, at this point I turn on my heater and the temp lowers. I have considered a griffen radiator, I need to look and make sure my fans are comeing on with the correct temp. I have lowered the temp about 12deg with the minor mods. I will let everyone know what the change is with the tranny mods.

Brad

 

Yeah, removing the transmission cooler from radiator helps... I did the ******* way though... I just got a old radiator 31x19 made out of metal and slapped it in place of my plastic one when it broke. It had no cooler built in, but I already had my Street/strip 700-r4 so I was running a haynes external cooler and I even have a 900+ cfm (corrected) pusher fan mounted on it. Man it still gets hot (180-210 at times) and I only have a 2400 lock up 9" act stall. I bought another cooler cause I'm hoping to have it respun for high stall. I'm gonna run 2 coolers.

As for motor cooling you could try a stage 2 aluminum high flow stewart water pump and see if it cools down the motor anymore.

 

Before you go crazy buying more parts try a 180* t-stat. Seems odd yes but you may just need more cycle time for the coolant to cool.

 

Griffen 4 core all aluminum radiator .... that's what you need.

You can't go wrong with one. My friend put one in his '89 formula and with a 160 t-stat it barely even hits 160* and he hardly ever has to kick his fans on. In the winter time he never has to run the fans and the temp guage barely moves so he has to jump to a 195 for the winter time.

Run an external tranny cooler with a griffen radiator and you're all set.

 

Do all cars have the internal cooler? I recently got a new GM radiator for my '89 IROC-Z....then I was thinking about one of those external ones, but now I here radiators have an internal one......

 

As far as I know, most cars have the internal cooler in the radiator. Regardless, the external one is still the better option even if you have an internal. The internal cooler is heated up by the radiator fluid going through the radiator, the external cooler allows for better cooling of the transmission fluid because it's mounted right on the outside of the radiator and gets the direct air being sucked in by the fan and pushed up by the air dam.

 

The only automatic car I've seen w/o cooler in the rad was a '74 Vega.

In the past, they would not put the cooler in the rad on manual cars. With so many cars being auto the past couple of decades, they found it was cheaper to put the cooler in all radiators than it was to stock/track two different parts. Even went to the same rad for V6 or V8.

 

So, if I went with the external cooler, I would just bypass the lines going to the internal one and just hook them up to the external one instead? Sounds easy enough.

 

thats what I did.