My Day Off: Spal Fan and Empty Engine Bay

Had the day off college, so I pulled the engine and trans out of my 242. Turns out my trans was an AW71. Wish the previous owner would have sealed the trans when it was leaking to avoid running it dry and ruining it...

Between the AW71 and 1031 rear I could have done a +T for the money and time I'm spending swapping in this AW70. Oh well...

Asides from that, I found my new Spal fan that I'm not going to end up using on my Third Gen Camaro, because I ended up starting an LS swap. Anyway, the fan is a 16" puller, and it moves plenty of air for the 242, although a bit noisy because of the straight fin design. Is it worth installing an e-fan since I have this one on hand?

What's the secret to getting maximum life out of an AW70? A fat trans cooler? I'm not planning to drive crazy like, but definitely more "spirited" than my work truck.

A synthetic oil would be my first step to extending trans service life. The turbo cars came with an external oil cooler which would bolt on to an n/a car. If your car is going to be turbo I wouldn't use an AW70 on it. Probably won't last long.

dl242gt said:

A synthetic oil would be my first step to extending trans service life. The turbo cars came with an external oil cooler which would bolt on to an n/a car. If your car is going to be turbo I wouldn't use an AW70 on it. Probably won't last long.

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I will have to get one of the external coolers for my car, then. I will be sure to use synthetic. I don't have a turbo in the plans yet, as there are many other things that will be done first. However, I may end up rebuilding the AW71 that I just pulled out of the car and perhaps use that in the future.

As far as I am aware, the AW70 is quite long-lived when not used to transmit more than the ~110HP from a N/A engine, and given the standard "good care" for automatic transmissions (timely changes of fluid, no brake boosting or towing which overheats the fluid, etc).

Most common failure is the solenoid system preventing overdrive operation.

Activities which generate extra heat through slippage like towing or mountain roads can be compensated for with the extra cooler. Synthetic fluid also is more stable and may work better in high heat. Extra power, though, will need an AW71 or modern transmission swap.

Efficiency is not the best since some energy is always lost in the torque converter, and a lock-up transmission or manual will get notably better gas mileage.

I put on an external cooler I bought on amazon. It was super easy to install(both on my 90 and 93). It actually works so well it draws heat out of the radiator(used my infrared thermometer to check temps coming and going). I have mine going from the transmission to the external cooler then back to the factory cooler. I used brass fittings from homedepot to go in between the radiator and the hard lines so I didn't cut anything. Would only take a minute or so to undo by removing the adapters and then attaching the lines back to the radiator.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000C3F3SO/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1