I eliminated the HE and took a 500 mile trip towing approx. 10,000lbs. I have never been kicked out of OD towing until I took this trip. I thought for sure that the little cooler up front and the one under the bed would have been enough, I was wrong. I don't know what the actual temp was because my sending unit is in the pan and I believe there's BIG difference between hot line and pan. On the good side I did notice a drop in coolant temp. and that's what I wanted. There's a lot of long uphill and down hill grades where I live so for me it was a good test. I normally take it out of OD if I'm under 65mph or on a long up hill grade when towing. On this trip it didn't take much to kick me out of OD. The HE does it's job and helps cool the tranny and puts the heat right in the radiator. I'm not putting the HE back in but that's gone for good but I am going to add another cooler which I think will fix the problem. I just thought I'd put out the info.

Mike

 

What temp did you see in the pan?

 

around 190

 

A LOT of people mistakenly think the HE simply adds heat during the winter and adds to the trans heat during the summer and while working.

 

fluid to fluid HE's are much more efficient then air to fluid.

 

So are the finned transmission pans (such as Mag Hytech) and the under-bed auxillary tranny coolers a waste of money and time?

 

I think deeper pans and aux coolers help a lot but I agree with apwatson 50

 

I think the finned pans are not much gain for the money, but the under-bed coolers with a dedicated fans work good. I know from 1st hand experience. The automatic ford CC I am building with the A518 trans will be getting one. I have it from my old auto D250. Those are lots of gain for the same money as a trans pan.

The way I plumb the cooler is under-bed cooler>coolant HE>front air cooler>back to trans.

My reasoning is the extra cooler to cool the trans oil before it puts heat into the engine, the the coolant HE so if it is cold will heat up the trans oil, then the front cooler because that is what the factory did. haha

 

Thanks alot for posting this info, I have always wanted to know how much they help to cool the fluid.

Dar

 

the only problem with the heat exchanger is that it also makes the trans fluid hotter when the engine runs hot.