Video: High-Tech Features of Derale’s Cooling Turbo 400 Trans Pan

We all know that the best way to help your transmission live a long and happy life is to keep the fluid as cool as possible. But stock fluid cooling systems in some of our favorite GM applications are barely adequate for the heat produced by a stock transmission – forget about the massive amount of heat created by a high-stall torque converter in a typical performance application.

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We recently found this video on Derale Performance’s YouTube channel explaining their unique solution to helping performance transmissions shed access heat. In their 25 year history of designing transmission pans to aid in cooling, they’ve learned a few cool tricks.

For example, their cooling pan for Turbo 400 transmissions (Part # 14201) features specially designed cooling tubes that catch cool air as the car moves forward. The cool air is spiraled through the tubes, picks up heat from the trans fluid, and carries the heat away as it exits out the back of the tube. The pan also increases the fluid capacity of the Turbo 400 by over 3 quarts, meaning even less chance of the fluid getting heat soaked, but maintains a low profile to keep it from scraping.

This pan is so well designed that even the black coating is especially engineered to dissipate heat. All these features combine to lower transmission fluid temps by as much as 50-degrees.  

Derale’s Turbo 400 cooling pan also comes with a stronger magnetic drain plug to catch more metal particles and rubber/steel reusable washer to keep it leak-free. There’s even a 1/8-inch NPT temperature sender bung located in the side of the pan so you can hook up some gauges to keep a close eye on the transmissions heat level. For more info on their cooling transmission pans, and to see if they make one for your application, check out Derale’s website.