Solution to H2 overheating problems

[Michael Baker]

I live in Ecuador, and often drive up the Andes mountains to heights of 14,000ft as well as driving an hour and a half to the beach at 90mph in temperatures of 90-100 Fahrenheit. My H2 has a Vortech Supercharger, I have taken out the catalytic converters for even more power (makes a BIG difference), and I have installed four HID spots in front of the radiator grille. So if anyone should have overheating problems, it is me!

Before making the changes detailed below, I observed that when pushing the car hard the water temperature would rise above 210 to 230/240, and only went back down to 210 when I lifted the foot off the accelerator. The transmission oil temperature would also rise to 230/240 and remain there, even after lifting the foot off the accelerator. I have always used synthetic transmission fluid (Mercon 5), so I hoped that no permanent damage would be done to the transmission.

After reading innumerable comments on the Elcova web site, I did the following:

• I replaced the stock water radiator with a much larger aluminum one from BeCool ($800). This radiator includes the transmission oil heat exchanger. After replacing the radiator the water temperature never once budged from 210, however the transmission fluid temperature still rose to 230/240
• After reading carefully the description of PhilD ( http://www.*******club.com/tech/tranny_cooler_2.html ), where it seems that the solution given did not completely solve the problem, I decided to replace the stock transmission cooler with the largest one that would fit between the supercharger radiator and the air conditioning radiator. After extensive research, I chose the Tru-Cool MAX transmission cooler #4739-1 (without the external thermal bypass - Bulkpart.com $105). This transmission cooler is much larger at 8 1/2 x 22 3/4 x 1 1/4 inch than the Hayden 405 (10" x 15.5" x ??) installed by PhilD. I also replaced the stock transmission pan with the larger pan PML-9427 ($170 from Trail Duty) and installed a heat shield to cover the upper part of the exhaust as it passes under the transmission pan (THE-11630 Summitracing.com). After all these changes, the transmission fluid temperature fluctuates between 150 and 180, but never rises above 180.

Obviously all this costs, but I no longer have to worry about overheating problems!

I attach a photo of the installed transmission radiator and another of the new pan and exhaust heat shield.