We hit 200+ at our track day with a medium sized cooler. I bought the one you linked and am going to plumb it in after the radiator. That will give me some data to see if its worth it or not to run it in the radiator.

When is your next race?

7

I have a 2004 police interceptor. For my particular year it has a transmission cooler that it also shares with the power steering system but it's independent from the A/C condenser.

In hard city stop and go my transmission fluid temperature is around 188 degrees fahrenheit. On the freeway the temperature drops to 165 degrees fahrenheit. At idle she holds at 172 degrees fahrenheit. These temperatures are recorded when the weather is approximately 54-56 degrees fahrenheit outside.

That said, I have one broken air dam that I need to fix and I will look into what the other poster said about creating an additional air dam and I still haven't installed a larger aluminum transmission pan that holds additional quarts.

I don't think there is too cold of fluid for a transmission unless you're living in places like Iceland or Alaska. If I can hit your numbers after what I intend to do I will be happy.

Thunderhill last weekend in May. The track is located in Willows CA, which is notoriously hot. My only suggestion, other than the giant swamp cooler, is a switch to full synthetic fluid. It holds up a lot better, heats up slower, and cools faster.

We ran an average of 5-10 degrees cooler from day one to day 2 of our fist race, with just a partial fluid change. (It was blind luck, the local Napa only had Valvoline synthetic)

I’ve done a couple test runs since we got our Trans back together and I’m having a hard time getting it to normal operating temp (180-190) in street driving. It seems to want to run about 160-165. This makes me feel like we should be able to stay under 210 in our next race.)

The trans guy advised dexron 3 mercon 1 as its thicker. I never thought about going synthetic. WE also are running a mustang v6 convertor, it supposedly is matched to the engine better. Id love to switch to the newer smaller convertor but thats a down the road project. Ive spent a lot of $ getting the trans and drivetrain essentially bulletproof.

Yep, we’re right there with you. The bulk of our money has been invested in reliability. In most cases we’ve replace broken, worn, or old parts with Motorcraft in an attempt to maintain OEM reliability.

We know it’s only a matter of time before the Trans, motor, or both give up. At that point we’ll have some decisions to make. (We’re leaning towards the idea of a forged bottom end, cams, and ported stock heads, along with long tubes.) No boost, no crazy compression, just smooth reliable 300-325 hp. That also makes it easier to rebuild the trans with more bulletproof components, when it’s time comes.

At this point we’re hoping our motor and trans hold on for a year or so. We’re slowly investing money in better suspension components, and we want to swap to a 3.55 locker.

A locker, are you going to be switching to drag racing? You may want to look into a gear style lsd as well for road courses. Just a thought as driving style can mitigate advantages and disadvantages of either.

i thought about the 3.55 but ultimately decided against it. Since our power goals are 300 hp I went with 3.27

3.27 will get you 121 with three gears with 275/35/18 at 5200 rpm. Our plan is to not use OD at all. 3.55 only gets you 111 at 5200 which may force you into OD at some tracks Id say 5200 is a decent limit for fuel economy and reliablity. IF you need a little more mph then a bump of the rev limit is all you need. 5500 is 128 which is probably enough for a 300 hp 3100 lb car.( ours is probably close to that since 1996 is fairly light to begin with ) Worst case scenario you can just use OD and be fine.

If you plan on a 5 speed then a 3.55 or 3.73 may be beneficial.

I snagged a used Auburn road race LSD and it works fantastic. Its a spring type not a clutch based unit. Lucklily it was only $100 since its a 28 spline but will handle 300 hp all day long.

Sorry, misspoke LSD, not locker.

We actually did the same calculations. We rarely hit 111 (at least so far) but feel like the trade off for us is better power out of the turns. We also only run in the first 3 gears.

We’re running Thunderhill at the end of May, which is pretty much the fastest track we run. We’re still on 3.27, so this will give us a better idea. Either was a LSD is definitely in the future.

Thanks for the tip on the Auburn. They make great products and I would not hesitate to buy something made by them.

We hit 109 at CMP with basically a stock crown vic with the NPI 4.6. VIR is also close and has a longer straight then CMP so thats what we based our calculations on. F

That derale 8000 cooler that 88grandmarq linked will not cool the trans under hard use, we had it plumbed in the radiator and without and even added a parts store tube and fin. It still would struggle to keep it under 230.

Granted it was 94 degrees out but racing doesnt stop.

I called derale and went with their largest cooler/fan with a 180 thermostat. The 13870, its a 40 row cooler that is massive and was told in no uncertain terms that if it doesnt work you have problems that cant be fixed.


Even with our problems we managed a 2nd place and a 3rd place finish.

For what's its worth, the other good transmission builder Darren who I believe use to post on this forum said he uses Mobil 1 fully synthetic ATF transmission fluid in his race builds.

He said when he tore down the 4r70w that used Mobil 1 the hard parts were better protected from the heat as they didn't have discolorations from the heat.


https://www.bcawebstore.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=25

Synthetic may help a little, but heat is heat.

I'm doing a complete fluid change and will switch to synthetic, in anticipation of no more cooling issues. Getting the trans out of the radiator should help with our engine temps. We ran with and without it plumbed and the coolant temps definitely rose and struggled to stay under 220 with the trans run in the radiator.

Well we’re back from Thunderhill and I can only describe the weekend as; challenging.

First, the temp was never below 97. (Fri, 97, Sat 99, Sunday 104.)
Second, we caught several driving penalties on Sat.
Third ,on Sunday our fan module blew out, causing us to hot wire the fan directly to the battery. This also caused problems, because we didn’t have a sufficient gauge wire. After melting the first set-up, we wrapped 4 wires together to split the load, which works well enough to limp to the finish line.

Worst of all, our Trans ran at 260+ with a high of 284. (If you didn’t know, the wrench light comes on about 275)

So, back to the drawing board.

The plan moving forward is to switch from the single Derale, to a 2 cooler set-up.
Cooler one will be a large stack-plate cooler, which is more efficient.
The second, if we can find room, will be remotely mounted, and have its own fan. (If we can’t find a good location for that, we’ll run a second stack plate next to the main cooler,)
We’re also switching to stainless lines, because they are supposed to be more resistant to heat.

I know some people here have gone with the LPW pan. We’re now strongly considering this option too. My understanding is it hangs kind of low. I’ve searched everywhere for a photo of one mounted under a CV, but can’t find one.

If anyone is running the LPW pan, I would really appreciate a photo.

Will keep you all posted, I know there is a patch to a race trans that runs under 230.

Just putting it out there that it might be worth a shot to talk to someone over at Ford Racing. Those guys are smart and I'm sure someone over there might be willing to help.

https://performanceparts.ford.com/contact-us/