the other day i was looking through a mustang mag and saw that one of the featured cars had some sort of oil cooler attached to the bottom of the car instead of up near the front of radiator, how well would this work, im not sure if it was for tranz or motor oil though.
most of those have a small electric fan attached to them, ive seen a few people use them on their race cars, but im not to sure on street usage
My 2cents, look at the factory hi po cars, ie boss302, & drag pack cars. Build a bracket to mount infront of the radiator
I've done a couple of trans cooler installs with fans under the car. Air flow is key. Just don't put it anywhere where it will be damaged or near an exhaust system component. In a Maverick, undercar space is very limited unless you still have single exhaust. Up front is still probably the best place, even if you mount it flat with a fan. Don't forget that it needs a place for air to go after moving through the cooler. Don't mount it flat against a panel where air can't get out and a scoop or ducting would definitely help. Just a suggestion.
Most often the trans cooler is mounted directly in front of the radiator or to one side or the other. The existing fan will pull enough air to make it efficient at keeping temps down if it is big enough to do the job. Regardless of where you mount any cooler you need to make sure it gets good airflow and that the air temp is as low as possible. Running the engine compartment air at 180 - 190F will do little to cool the oil until the oil temp reaches well over the 170F ideal transmission temp.
I have a rear mounted oil cooler. it is mounted beside the gas tank. it has a fan that i do not use. i checked the temp w/o the fan running and it was at 175*. i'm thinking the long lines to and from the cooler have a cooling effect also... ......
I have put more than one trans cooler under the car but never used one with a fan. I have used this type and the long aluminum finned one actually worked the best underneath the car. Ran it on the Model A hot rod. It as a pretty hot car with a PA street fighter behind a blown flathead running 4:11's most of the time on the street and it stayed around 180/185 most of time with long aluminum finned cooler which was about 20 degrees less than without. One thing to keep in mind is where you actually put the temp sending unit, do not put in the line, it needs to go into the pan and be reading temperature directly from the trans, not the line. If you have it in the line it could be giving you a false reading as much as 20/30 degrees less than the oil in the trans.
