aluminum transmission pan?

Is it worth it to add an aluminum pan to my 4l60e? My truck has 64,000 miles. I am planing on changing the filter soon and installing my superior super servos in the near future. Would adding a new pan be worth the cost? Summit sells a couple in the $180 range. Would it help prolong the life of the transmission or is it just a gimmick item installed for looks?

money would be better spent on a bigger transmission cooler if you haven't done that yet.

one that most people use including me is the tru cool max. A guy on performance truck has a kit with brackets and fittings to make it a very easy install.

without thermal bypass (recommended)
http://www.oregonperformancetransmission.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=LNG-47391
with thermal bypass
http://www.oregonperformancetransmi...D&Category_Code=TRUCOOL&Product_Code=LNG-4739

http://www.performancetrucks.net/fo...nstall-kit-brackets-fittings-hardware-508374/

thermal bypass is seriously not needed here in texas unless you drive up north a lot during the winter.


another easy insurance is to get a guage cluster from a 2500 that has the trans temp gauge on it and have it programmed to your truck. that way you can easily monitor trans temps and it will literally look 100% factory and is completely plug and play minus the re calibration that any dealer can do.

Then there is the HD-2 shift kit. This will firm up shifts depending on how you install it.

custom EFI live tune to fine tune all your shift points and increase line pressure a bit.

so that would put the fancy trans pan in last. will it help with cooling a little? maybe. You would see more benefits running a pan that holds more fluid but with that trans cooler, it would be a little overkill. Also having the trans fluid flushed every 50k will help as well. The main thing that kills these transmissions is downshifting in heat, but with a big cooler keeping things cool you won't have to worry as much. Factory wheels/tires and drivetrain shouldn't have a single problem.

Well, the pans holds two quarts more than stock, i thought that might help things a bit. . I have a SS silverado cluster with the trans temp gauge. I also have the factory code "knp" trans cooler now. It looks like that cooler would be a huge upgrade. Thanks for the tip.

I got the kit yesterday. It includes everything needed to install the kit. I bougth the cooler from Oregon Performance as well. I hope to get a chance to install it this weekend. I think the $75 is worth it for the convinence, but he is deffinantly making a little cash on these kits.

Danzigman said:

I got the kit yesterday. It includes everything needed to install the kit. I bougth the cooler from Oregon Performance as well. I hope to get a chance to install it this weekend. I think the $75 is worth it for the convinence, but he is deffinantly making a little cash on these kits.

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honestly, i tried to save money by making it myself. the time it took to run all around town to find these fittings and to buy the aluminum and measure and cut it myself, you save MAYBE $20-30 doing it yourself (if you don't **** up the first aluminum mounts. i ended up having to get another set and saved $0)

100000% worth it to me. trust me lol. and i had to jimmy rig some ****** fittings to get it to work. fittings for this stuff is a huge pain in the ass. there's like 100000 different kinds and figuring out which ones work..

probably gonna end up just buying his fitting kit so i don't have to worry about mine anymore. it hasn't leaked yet but it looks kinda ******.

glad to give helpful suggestions! pretty sure i can safely say the only reason my trans is still alive today is because of that cooler and my bb tune. otherwise i'm sure it would be toast.

I installed my superior billet servos and my trans cooler this weekend. This cooler works well. I drove around in near 100 degree heat this weekend and the trans temp never hit the 150 mark.

if it runs too cool, it wont get hot enough too burn off the crud in the oil. 180deg is a good temp.