transmission cooler?

[Dittmar]

hey guys i am in the prosses of hand building a transmission (300m parts, torsion base center diff, LSD, and brace) no i had a crazy idea come into my head and i was wondering if anyone else had the same ideas or have tried it. i was thinking about fabricating an cooler for it. use something like a 19 row cooler that i uses AN10 lines to and from it. using the drain plug hole as the hot side and fill plug (or make own hole) for the cold side. may need some sort of external pump or something to make it work.

what do you think?

[AaronVR4]

Before going through with any project like this, test the temp of the fluid. May not be worth messing with.

[Dittmar]

any idea what acceptable range would be?

[91STT]

Unlike an automatic trannies, these manual trannies to not have any clutch packs or electronics in them that would that could be damaged by elevated fluid temperatures. I don't see a benefit with using one for our applications. Using the drain hole can be a problem unless you decide to fabricate a skid plate to reduce the possibility of the line or fitting being snagged and torn off. Just my 2¢

[DocWalt]

95% sure it will be a waste unless you track the car for a long period of time.

[MK_94_3000GT]

Unaware of why this would be needed, I dont know of any TTs running them. Matt, IPO, Trevor, Ray and so on. Cant think of any of them running them (correct me if one of them does) and those are some built cars, which if you're pushing your car harder than that, well what are you doing?

[MR2]

I believe that Tasmaniac was looking into this, basically there are a lot of high powered cars but how many of them are taken out on the track...Id be keen to see if any of the track guys have logged temps. with regards to withstanding elevated temps, it's more a case of how long before the lubricating properties of the oil break down and you start to grind metal on metal (speeding up synchro death and bearings etc).

anyway I don't know! curious to explore it though!

[IPD]

wtf?

i'm supposed to be the only AWD 3/s with a trans cooler. :(

[MR2]

Are you Auto?

[Apache]

I would worry more about our transfer cases than our transaxles. They have a bad tendency to spit the fluid in them out the breather hole when driving at high speeds for an extended period. Of course... that's not to say that a cooler for the tranny doesn't peak my interest too...

[MR2]

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=240331&page=1

Lots of interesting stuff in this one

[colt45 gto]

i wouldn't worry toomuch about oil temps in a MT, you need to worry about fluid loss from the transfer case at high speeds, the breather is set too low and the oil is spat out of that (i think past 100mph) there is however a fix for this, you can fabricate a breather tube from that up to the top of the trans with a small K&N filter then it will not loose oil it will run back down the tube.

[MR2]

I'm kinda keen to get some temperature monitoring before going with it not being needed, definitely worth considering something on the transfer-case

[Apache]

I'm pretty sure there are a couple of guys already running something for the transfer case, not quite sure how they're doing it though. I seem to recall that someone made a whole new fluid reservoir mounted in the engine bay to help, possibly hooked up to a pump to help actually circulate the fluid. I don't think just a breather tube for the TC would be enough since at sustained high speed driving that fluid gets HOT, probably due to the relatively small bearing surfaces. But a breather tube would be better than nothing I suppose.

As for an actual MTX cooler, I still say that it couldn't hurt. Michael, any chance you already have a way of monitoring temps already?

[i3igpete]

if my memory serves me correctly, MT fluid is only warm to the touch when drained from a car that was driven. whereas AT fluid is quite hot, since it is driven through pumps and the torque converter to physically move the car.

[MR2]

It should be a piece of piss to drop a temp probe in, I'll look into it.

[Apache]

Much appreciated. Let us know the results.

[Boostaddict]

For a MT oil cooler to be significantly effective you'd have to be running sustained gear oil (sump) temps of ~ 250°F or more for quite a while. If your gear oil is around that temp for any lengthy amount of time it will start to degrade (additive package breaking down). Measure your trans sump temps and that should give you an idea of what you are dealing with.

[MR2]

Bitchin:

http://www.aemelectronics.com/transmission-temp-gauge-100-300f-764

[EvanH]

A while ago I had bought a Laser thermometer. I randomly was aiming it at things on my car, the trans was one of them. After a drive of 70-80mph for 30-40 min. My trans was only 165*F. Maybe that is helpful to you. But it was measured from where the drain plug is( I aimed the laser at that point).

[MR2]

Good Info! Thanks :D

[EvanH]

youre welcome