Diesel vs gas......................

majorgator wrote:

I have a tru-cool max trans cooler, and my trans temp when heavy towing doesn't get over about 180/190 degrees down here in the hot humid climate of FL. My truck is a '96 F350 7.3L. No larger pan required. You might gain a little bit more cooling effect in the higher temp ranges, like above 240/250 degrees, but really, you should never be that high anyway. The biggest difference is always made when using auxiliary coolers.

Let me add to my own post (in leu of editing). A primary key to having lower trans temps is an auxiliary cooler. However, another very important factor is to have trans fluid that is in excellent condition. If you overheat your transmission (ie fluid too), then the fluid begins to break down. This means that the trans will overheat easier/quicker than it did the previous time...and so on. This is because the fluid has lost some of its heat absorption/dissipation properties. It never gets better. If you overheat your transmission, then its a good idea to change the fluid. This is not completely necessary if you overheated it doing something that you rarely ever do, such as pull an extremely heavy load. You'll still be OK driving around town with the "less than optimum" trans fluid.

There's just so much more to keeping your trans temp under control than simply putting a larger pan on it. In fact, that's the very last thing I would do. Perhaps, under extreme driving conditions (like what 0.0001% of people would do), it may helpful from a lubrication standpoint. But that's the wrong path to take for cooling purposes.