The yellow GT is back in our R&D facility to show us a thing or two about testing trans coolers. Upon the GT's arrival, we wasted no time getting the pony car saddled with our testing rig.

Mustang GT on the dyno for transmission cooler testing

Mustang GT on the dyno for transmission cooler testing

We couldn't have asked for a better day for our Mustang transmission cooler testing. We began testing on a beautiful fall afternoon with an ambient temperature of 70°F and 40% humidity. However, this would be no easy day for this brightly-colored beast. With the GT fiercely perched on our Dynapacks, we began testing by applying a constant load to the Mustang. The car was run on the Dyno at 70 MPH in 6th gear, with the dyno producing 60% load, for a grueling 5 minutes in order to ensure the transmission cooler was heat-soaked. We then reduced the load to 36% for another 5 minutes to complete our test.

Results

The Mishimoto trans cooler was able to reduce temperatures by 18°F when compared to

In our last post, we took a look at the stock Mustang automatic transmission cooler and our plans to make it even better. We designed the cooler in Solidworks, based off the measurements obtained from both the GT and the stock cooler. We will be doing our R&D with this bold yellow GT, but based on our research, this cooler will fit all models of S550 Mustang including the EcoBoost and V6. But enough about fitments, the prototype is complete! It is time to see how well our digital design translated into a real-life prototype.

Mishimoto Mustang trans cooler

So far the trans cooler is looking good. It is much larger than the stock cooler, 50% larger to be exact. The stock cooler comes in at 10 rows, where the Mishimoto cooler doubles its size at 20 rows.

Mustang Trans Coolers

Mustang Trans Coolers

With the stock cooler removed, we must now check the fitment of our trans cooler in the GT. Dan, our engineer, removed the bumper for better access to the cooler and lines.

Mustang GT donor vehicle

Over the past year we have been getting acquainted with our Mustang GT, and in the process we've developed an entire line of cooling products for it. In the spirit of staying cool, we are on to our next project, the Mustang GT Automatic Transmission Cooler.

Donor vehicle for Mustang GT trans cooler testing

Heat is generally the enemy of an automatic transmission. In fact, the Ford factory service manual notes that when the GT's computer senses the transmission overheating, it will limit RPMs until the temperature returns to a normal range. There is nothing worse than a track day ending early due to high temps of any kind, including in the transmission. Whether you are taking your GT to the track or doing any sort of hard driving, you may have considered the addition of a trans cooler. Ford certainly did. For this generation of Mustang they included an air-to-oil cooler rather than the water-to-oil coolers of older generations.

Mishimoto's Design Plans

Our game plan is to go with the design