Now that warm weather is finally hear in the Chicago I am starting to see how the heat from the turbo is effecting things. Three times now I have been driving for an extended period of time in hot weather and my tranny starts to act funny. It gets hard to get into gear and very notchy in general. I never does this at night or in cooler weather. I think it is related to my feed and down pipe running right under my tranny, less than a 1/4 inch from it. I think I am heating up my tranny fluid something awful.

So what are my options as far a tranny coolers go. I am kinda familiar with them in auto cars, would the same system work in a manual transmission. Can I just take a tranny cooler from an auto maxima and get it to work? Any thoughts?

 

you would need a pump since manual transmissions dont have one like autos

 

Im sure it's possible.......but probly not worth it. Does gear oil tend to weaken when it gets hotter and hotter? I didnt think temperature effects it too much (of course to a certain degree) - but exactly how hot is your downpipe? You got an EGT probe in there?

Do you have a motor oil cooler?

 

He just said that it only does it when it gets hot... apparently temperature is affecting it enough to cause a change.

 

there really isnt a stock auto tranny cooler, just some aluminum hard lines.

i would look into a permacool dual unit that can cool your tranny and your oil at the same time.
http://www.jegs.com/cgi-bin/ncommerc...21&prmenbr=361

i personally like the ones with the fans.

 

And I am not 100% sure that my tranny acting up is due to the heat. My tranny has been perfectly fine since I installed the turbo until the last week or so when it has gotten hot out side. It does not happen right away either. After 20 minutes or so of driving in 80+ degree weather is when the car doesn't want to go into gear and it gets real notchy. If I turn the car off for a while it is fine again till it heats up again.

Forgot about the fact that the tranny fluid just sits in there. I would need a pump, and that makes things much more complicated.

 

How new is your clutch?

 

3 months, maybe 4k miles.

 

Your only option may be to reroute that down pipe.

 

I hope to eventually redo my piping and go with a forward y-pipe set up instead of this reverse y-pipe that brings all my piping right under my tranny. Clearance is my main reason for wanting to redo the piping, this would give me a better reason.

 

Yea i would think that would be a real good reason. No one else has had any similar issues with running the reverse y pipe?

 

Go and buy some heat wrap. Wrap it around your pipes. That will keep a good 65% of that heat off that tranny etc... please do wear a long sleeve shirt cuz that fiber glass will eat you up for a good two days. That is what I used and never ever had any tranny issues.

 

Good call, was thinking about that as well.

 

Steve, my car had a tranny cooler integrated into the bottom of the rad. I think the lines you are thinking of are for power steering.

Mike, is that pipe ceramic coated already? Is header wrap gonna do anything more? I've seen some race setups on RWD cars that integrate a pump right onto the diff housing and then a cooler in the back bumper area. The Caddy in the world Cup GT class has the cooler situated where the liscense plate would be. Its really cool. FWD trannies pose much more of a problem though. There is so much more fluid to cool. I agree that wrapping that pipe is the best quick solution. Overall though it seems re-routing makes way more since.

 

Get a Koyo automatic replacement rad and use a pump to circulate to fluid?

Probably cheaper/more effective to just add an aux tranny cooler with a fan though.

 

yes it is "ceramic" coated, if you want to call it that. I can't remeber who called it, but the stuff I got is crap. It is already rusting in a few spots. Don't think it is doing much for me. Wrapping the pipes will be the first step I will take. But these are also the pipes that I bottom out on sometimes so I will pobably run into problems with the wrap tearing/wearing away.

Also, now that it is hot outside my underhood temps are crazy. I am going to wrap all my hot piping and get a heat shield/cover for the exhaust side of my turbo. My knock has gone up since it has gotten hot outside. I use to cruise around with 0 or less than 10 knock via my SAFC. Now, if I am driving in traffic in the middle of the day I get 20-30 knock. Not dangerous, but there is a difference from the heat. I am glad to see that I don't have any heat damage on any of the coolant hoses, vacuum hoses, or other places of concern.

 

For the turbo, do these work well

http://www.atpturbo.com/Merchant2/me...egory_Code=BCS

or there is a type I have seen that covers the turbo like a bonnet

 

I'd get this instead of just a shield:
http://www.thermotec.com/products/fu...5001_part.html

http://www.jegs.com/cgi-bin/ncommerc...82&prmenbr=361

 

all of the above issues I had. One thing I hate is that freaking heat. Traveling during winter time is the bomb. Summertime driving blows during the daytime. Fan just kicks on almost all the time. You open the hood and the heat is just as bad as an oven. The wrap will under the tranny will be fine. The 90 coming into to the tranny, the bottom of that will tear. The wrap will keep the heat off. I went and dynoed and touched the Y pipe after a 45 min drive and it did not burn my skin off. Thats how I know that heat will not transfer into the tranny.

 

Not boost related since I am N/A, on my old clutch when it would get hot and swell up, it made it hard to shift and felt notchy because it would not fully disengage. Could be that, but might very well be the actual fluid getting hot and breaking down.

 

Mike,

What tranny fluid are you running? Redline MT90? Amsoil?

 

Mike if you want to consider going this route I have an auto rad out of my max. I replaced it a year ago. It has the auto cooler built into the bottom. We could work out a nice deal.

 

He has Redline shockproof heavy.

 

Bet you wish you had just bought the supercharger now huh . J/k wrap those pipes up and get a oil cooler, and a turbo heat sheild and i i think that will reduce some of the heat issues

 

not when he hangs with evo rs's that push 22psi on wed nites.

 

redline heavy shockproof.

 

Those do look like they would do a much better job with the heat, but they are kinda goofy looking. The shield just doesn't look like it would do much.

 

Yep! that is exactly what it is like, an oven. I can even feel the heat radiate from under the car if I am standing next to it. If I didn't think it would look goofy I would get put some washers under my hood so that it is raised in the back to let air out/in.

 

All i can think of is running a heavy weight gear oil...
I wouldnt think that it would get that hot. MT usually run a lot cooler than autos

 

Yeah, my engine bay gets really hot too. It takes a good half hour for things to cool down, after driving awhile there isnt much I can touch for very long. Header wrap would be one solution, but be careful with it. You will cook your pipes. Although I do have some on my downpipe since it is so close to my MAF.

 

Do you have all the weather stripping out of the bay Mike? There are lots at the front and then one at the back just in front of the wipers. I noticed that significantly reduced my temps. I used to watch the IAT all the time. I had a HAI and I consistantly saw only 15 degrees higher than ambient at 60MPH. Back in the day I always used to see 25 degrees above ambient.

 

Didn't think of that. Any down side to removing it?

 

You get more water in the bay. Thats about it. Unless its really coming down there is a chance you suck in enough water to hydrolock. Although, that has never happened to me and I was driving in some wicked **** this weekend. Plus the heat from the turbo will most likely vaporize any water sucked in before it gets to the motor.