tranny overheating, need bigger tranny cooler?

my mods: I had the A4 stock tranny rebuilt to stage 4, put in a Vigilante 3000 stall with 402 motor, Afr225 heads and G5X4 cam.

question is: it seems the tranny is overheating a bit, sometimes the tranny slips in 2nd gear since the car revs up but no hook or traction, then 3rd seems to hook good. I am thinking the stock tranny cooler is not enough for the rebuilt tranny with the stall, something is creating heat back there so would I need to upgrade to a new/bigger tranny cooler? for those that stalled ya car or built up the tranny did you get a bigger tranny cooler with that?

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Originally Posted by djvaly

my mods: I had the A4 stock tranny rebuilt to stage 4, put in a Vigilante 3000 stall with 402 motor, Afr225 heads and G5X4 cam.

question is: it seems the tranny is overheating a bit, sometimes the tranny slips in 2nd gear since the car revs up but no hook or traction, then 3rd seems to hook good. I am thinking the stock tranny cooler is not enough for the rebuilt tranny with the stall, something is creating heat back there so would I need to upgrade to a new/bigger tranny cooler? for those that stalled ya car or built up the tranny did you get a bigger tranny cooler with that?

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You are correct about the stock trans cooler not being adequate. Its not even adequate with a stock transmission and stock stall converter, plenty of guys have overheated/burned up their transmissions due to excessive heat from racing, high temps, ect.

First thing you should have done is installed a high performance transmission cooler when you upgraded the internals and added the stall converter. The transmission is probably fried, a stalled/build 4L60 won't even hold up with a stock motor without a good cooler, and you're running a 402 with a H/C package.

Insall a high performance cooler (get a good one) and see if the transmission hold up. If you're lucky, it just slipped from excessive heat, and it will be ok with the new cooler. More than likely though, once they slip like that, they need to be rebuilt with new internal components.

Add some Lucas Transmission Fix as well, its should help condition the internals of the transmission.

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Originally Posted by Wesman

You are correct about the stock trans cooler not being adequate. Its not even adequate with a stock transmission and stock stall converter, plenty of guys have overheated/burned up their transmissions due to excessive heat from racing, high temps, ect.

First thing you should have done is installed a high performance transmission cooler when you upgraded the internals and added the stall converter. The transmission is probably fried, a stalled/build 4L60 won't even hold up with a stock motor without a good cooler, and you're running a 402 with a H/C package.

Insall a high performance cooler (get a good one) and see if the transmission hold up. If you're lucky, it just slipped from excessive heat, and it will be ok with the new cooler. More than likely though, once they slip like that, they need to be rebuilt with new internal components.

Add some Lucas Transmission Fix as well, its should help condition the internals of the transmission.

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yeah, the mechanics are looking at it as we speak, I think a tranny cooler it'd be like $100 or so... it only did that for a day or so, then left the car at the shop quickly... I think the tranny is good, cause once I shutdown the car and restarted 10 mins later I was able to drive fine for few minutes then it happened again so that tells me it's overheating but once it cools down the tranny ain't fried cause it drives fine. thank God it didn't get there ;) so yeah a nice cooler would do it.

so I'm buying a new tranny cooler today, a more effective one. replacing the stock one. cost about $90... they will install it in a day or so. I'll report back and let you know, but I be that's what it was. should keep that tranny nice and cool.

The same thing happend to me. ,I bot the biggest tranny cooler available but it was allready too late. I had trashed the tranny. I just did a 6 speed swap. So I have a barely used tranny cooler a servo. If you would need them i would sell cheap. Hope you have better luck than i did.

ahh just ordered a big tranny cooler 2 days ago,.. thanks man, so how long you drove like that till it was too late?

did you shutdown and cool off for few mins then the tranny would be ok for a few miles then slip again or did it just slip all the time?

I never hear of tranny being fine once it started to slip. The end is near.

i c, but the tranny i have has been built up, i hope it didn't take a shit cause those guys at LG didn't put a new tranny cooler than the stock one... hmmm, i just hope the built up version is ok. if not, then i just paid 1.7k for a tranny build up and I think LG Motorsports should put that money towards a new rebuilt tranny for me. I really hope everything is ok, i'll get more answers in a few days.

That's rough man. Hope it's ok, but I doubt it. All my auto cars one of the first thing I'd do was put an after market tranny cooler in them. That should be added to one of sticky's for modding. I don't remembering seeing that listed.

yeah, but what surprises me is that if it's such a hot point when modding your car the mechanics did not say shit about it or the good possibility of it happening. I have to call them today and ask if the tranny is trashed, cause I just had him order a nice cooler 2 days ago. u think they'd tell you it is broken :think:

I called them up this AM and they checked out the tranny yesterday and it looks good, they said that as long as you shut down and not drive like that extensively and abuse it overheated the tranny should have been good. no damage, yeah I drove a block and shut down, did that 2 times then decided to not drive it and bring it in... so the point is when it is overheating and slipping just don't abuse it and put a bigger cooler on it, the tranny should be good then. but like I said mine was built up stage 4 not stock anymore, perhaps it would take more abusing to actually break it. cool ;)

so I should have the car this PM :woo:

i am completley astonished they didnt tell you YOU MUST RUN AN AFTERMARKET TRANS COOLER OR IT WILL TAKE A SH*T

stock tranny's get hot as F as it is... now build it & throw in a 3000 stall???
thats a recipe for death

i'd be bitching to them big time... for not advising you properly

may as well have not put atf back in... just dumb of them


if its not dead consider yourself very lucky

i assume all the pumps are upgraded as well?

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Originally Posted by 1BADDLS1

i am completley astonished they didnt tell you YOU MUST RUN AN AFTERMARKET TRANS COOLER OR IT WILL TAKE A SH*T

stock tranny's get hot as F as it is... now build it & throw in a 3000 stall???
thats a recipe for death

i'd be bitching to them big time... for not advising you properly

may as well have not put atf back in... just dumb of them


if its not dead consider yourself very lucky

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the tranny is good no damage, thank god, yeah I expected them to at least advise me on it and recommend the new tranny cooler... I guess they overlooked that important piece. :shrug:

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Originally Posted by Zboner

i assume all the pumps are upgraded as well?

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my oil pump and fuel pumps are ls2 now.

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Originally Posted by djvaly

my oil pump and fuel pumps are ls2 now.

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he meant the pumps internal of the tranny

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Originally Posted by 1BADDLS1

he meant the pumps internal of the tranny

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the tranny was build up stage 4 I am told, to hold 600rwhp or so.
I assume some major rework was done to the tranny for 1.7k :shrug:

Damn, your lucky man!!! I'm happy to hear it's ok. I can believe they didn't tell you it's a necessity and that they wouldn't back the tranny if you didn't have one installed. That will make for some bad feelings with customers that didn't get as lucky as you. All the shops I've been to and heard about doing a performance build always mention a cooler. I'm shocked they didn't.