gee you guys a re friggine silly

YOU can put it through the rad first then the trans cooler for better cooling if you have a smaller trans cooler!

The bets thing to do ids to put 1 big trans cooler on your car and run the line to the trans cooler and NOT through the rad, as the rad tank can corrode and you end up with coolant in your tranny not a good thing at all

Definately the best way, I was just being lazy and seeing as I had the stock ford one there it was easier just to bolt it up.
It was also late in the day, it started to rain, there was an earthquake, IT WASN"T MY FAULT!!! (think John Belushi in Blues Bros)..

Plus I have to pull the radiator to do some work in the next few weeks so I'll re-plumb it then, but the main point here is IF you use the radiator make sure the fluid flows into it before the new cooler.

You beat me to it Frank, anybody that suggests removing the factory one and then install an aftermarket one is foolish or doesn't know what they're talking about.

Think of it this way, when the car is stationary and the fan's aren't on, the aftermarket cooler is doing two tenths of f**k all to help cool your fluid. Why? Because there is NO airflow through the aftermarket cooler.

The auto cooler is in the COLD tank of the radiator, if you leave the radiator cooler in, there is always some waterflow through the radiator, cooling the fluid, even if the aftermarket one is doing nothing.

Like already said, two coolers will ALWAYS be better than one. Look after your radiator (never mix different brands of coolant and always keep at least a 30% concentration of coolant) and you will never get corrosion problems or other issues.

If your factory auto cooler in the cold tank of the radiator is leaking or blocked up, then and only then is the right time to bypass it.

Everyone here is forgetting that the "trans cooler" in the radiator is also a "trans heater" when its cold.

Your trans is like the engine when it's started from 0 degrees on a cold morning lots of wear happens becasue the oil is too cold.

The "cooler" in your engine acts as a heater to get the trans up to temp quickly. And the trans fluid should be run at about 90 degrees C. So if you get a big cooler to help cool your trans put it BEFORE the radiator cooler. That way it will bring the temps down then the radiator will adjust them to the correct level.

When you are accelerating hard or stalling your car up your trans will heat up faster than any ttrans cooler can cool it. The built in trans cooler on my cab got blocked so I had to bypass it and fit a big muma in front of the rad. My trans man doesn't like the idea of pissy sized trans coolers built into the radiator.

This is an old wives tale, its completely untrue.

The trans cooler is in the cold side of the radiator. When the engine is cold, the trans is cold, ie at ambient temperature.

When the engine is cold, the thermostat restricts waterflow though the cooling system and therefore no water passes from the hot tank to the cold tank of the radiator. Even for the tiny bit of water flowing from the hot to cold side, this is instantly cooled even by doing 10km/h along in traffic.

The only time it can act as a heater is when the thermofans are off, car sitting stationary and thermostat wide open allowing hot water to pass through the radiator. If this ever happens, you'll notice there are other much more pressing issues to fix

No the engine heats up much faster than the trans and even the 'cold' side of your radiator is around 75 deg with the engine fully warmed up. If you don't believe me grab the 'cold' pipe on your radiator when your car is running - see how long it takes to burn your hand.

Your engine might take 10 min to warm up while the trans would take 30-40 min on its own.

Having the extra trans cooler before the radiator works like this.

On cold days with the trans fluid starting off close to atmospheric the extra cooler isn't doing much while the engine cooler is heating the fluid as soon as the thermostat opens - about 5 min after starting.

On very hot - high towing load days the trans fluid temp is high above ambient say 110 deg. The extra cooler is cooling it down to about 95 deg and the engine cooler a further to 85 deg. (im just making the numbers up for comparison)

On a normal day the cooler is probabily overcooling the fluid to say 50 deg, then the engine cooler will be heating it back up to say 80 deg.

Not when I tested it a few years ago ago.

Inserted thermocouple into bottom radiator hose and on days below about 20-ish degrees, the bottom hose never got warmer than about 30 degrees, got to about 40 with spirited mountain driving.

Think about it, if the cold hose is any warmer than about 50-60 degrees then your engine will overheat if you're making good power, unless you have an enormous amount of water flowing through (which often can also cause overheating).

The only time the cold side is very hot is when you have thermofans and aren't moving, and get out and feel the temp of the water. On my old skyline I'd hold the engine fan to see what the water temp would get to and the differnece between hot and cold side. As soon as the engine fan started back up, temps dropped to around 40-50 degrees.

This was on an old R31 Skyline which had major overheating problems until I replaced the radiator...

I am considering replacing the factory cooler. (EBII) and putting in a BM Supercooler from here

http://www.vpw.com.au/productgroup.asp? ... dGrpID=778

and then using the ford transcooler on the power steering.

dont know if this is worth while or not.

when i flushed the radiator. you could see down the pipe galleries.

i dont think its a cooler as such, for the trans that is. its more like a surge resivor. that would i guess be semi cooled.