Im 99% positive that all the 4.3 guys here ahve the pleasure of having a 4L60e trans, which from my days of messing around with f-bodies leads me to believe that they probably arent as reliable in these vehicles either. Does anyone use a remote mounted auxillary trans cooler, or a deeper trans pan? I had considered ther trans pan because i can get one for cheap but I'm worried that the pan might sit lower than the skid plate, and that's definetly not a good thing. anybody got any interesting setups?

 

I have a B&M transcooler.

 

B&M Supercooler on my old one (and my Rainier which is 4L60E equipped as well). I install a transmission cooler on every vehicle I own. Cheap insurance. The bigger you can go the better. The nice thing about the B&M SuperCooler is that they have a viscosity controlled bypass to limit over cooling of the transmission fluid. Plumb it into the top line (return to the transmission) for maximum cooling. The cold tank (passenger) on the radiator will knock the heat down a good bit and the cooler will bring it the rest of the way down.

These transmissions are quite reliable considering the sheer number of them that are used compared with the number that fail (we are looking at far less than 1% failure rate in stock applications). As with anything, if you start messing around with power, application, or both, you have to upgrade other systems to keep up. This is where a lot of people have problems.

If your truck already has the deep sump pan, then you probably do not want to go deeper. I like the Derale pan for additional cooling, but they can be a bit on the expensive side and they do hang down around an inch further than even the deep pan. They are not as expensive as the aluminum pans though. The tubes in the pan can also be a nice place for bees, wasps, and other critters to make a home (ask me how I know...).

 

I have a 700r4 (the daddy of the4l60e) and I have a deeper pan and tranny cooler.