3.5L V6 4WD Oil & Tranny Custom COOLER Set-up.

What's up everyone, new to the forums......just decided to take a min and post my recent upgrade to my 2013 Exp 4WD with 67,800 miles. Now, I talk a lot, so just skip the unnecessary rants.
I have known for yrs that NON-Commercial automobiles are inadequately cooled, this is industry B.S to keep you buying, repairing and upgrading cars, ALL commercial grade equipment come with serious and heavy duty cooling systems for durability. So, IGNORE the B.S that the dealership will tell you, your car/truck will GREATLY benefit from a cooling system upgrade.

Now, after going to the dealership and being told some "you don't need a trans cooling kit if you are not towing, Ford added 1/2 lines that fixed the problem" bull shit, this is the point I wanted to slap the crap out of the mechanic, since when did 1/2 cooling lines aid in cooling........you can increase the flow but it's the cooling unit that makes a diff. 1/2" lines my @$$, anyway, I then visited 4 shops, none of which were willing to do the job, so I decided to do it my damn self. I do work on cars, I was just intimidated by the fact that this is my business car so I was worried I might Fudge up something...........AN I DID!!!

Now, for anyone who wants to install one of these, it is NOT difficult, the ONLY reason I went through these challenges was because of the set-up I chose, I am a stickler for cooling and durability, SOOOOOOoooooooo, I chose parts that were OVERKILL for this car and I might pay the price, I have limited info and knowledge when it comes operating temps. This will be the reason why the transmission in an F-150 will always last the one in your Explorer and even the Expedition, they have a massive trans cooler..........By the way, you might also want tpo consider sourcing your Trans cooler from a 2004-2005 F-150, they would fit perfectly behind the lower grill opening, by the time I realized that, I had already taken apart my EXP and couldn't wait for shipping, I was also involved in an accident so I was seriously broke and had to go back to work!

Now, I chose 'STACKED PLATE' coolers as they are the most efficient, but my stupidity, I decided to use one of the coolers that I purchased for my 1999 F-350 DIESEL TRUCK, BAD DECISION!!! The cooler is a 30-Row massive cooler that is just unnecessary even with my thinking but, I had TWO of these and decided to (because I am a stickler for cooling) use the trans cooler from a 6.0 Diesel, if you know anything about Ford, we are related in the fact they ALWAYS DO SOME DUMB SHIT!!!

OFF TOPIC - F-350 Diesel: So Ford decides to build the glorious 7.3L TD and the crappy 6.0L TD (which is only crappy because the EGR system they installed in this thing is SOO FUDGING STUPID that they use engine coolant to COOL THE EGR SYSTEM, which increases engine temps and is notorious for failure which wears out your engine and in many occasions, BLOW IT UP. SOOOOOOooooooo, to make up for this stupidity, Ford decides to give the 6.0L TD the BEST everything to increase performance, durability and longevity of everything else because your engine is going to blow up soon enough. The Trans cooler in the 6.0L TD is massive and well built, the intercooler is also larger as they run higher boost to produce power, the engine fan is lighter and MORE EFFICIENT reducing reciprocating mass and added airflow...........so I bought 6.0L TD intercooler, Trans cooler and fan..................and this is how I ended up with an extra cooler.

I did have to buy a second cooler as both massive cooler COULD NOT FIT in the Exp (trust me, I tried :^), another stupid thing I did, I am also a sufferer of OCD so I wanted my set-up centered and clean, so I fitted the set-up without doing enough research, had studs welded only to realize that you CANNOT mount stacked plate coolers upside down, this coupled with the very limited space and oversize coolers became a mounting nightmare.

You DON'T need this much cooling, even I think that, but, I drive Uber in ATL so I am in traffic ALL day long and lastly, I am planning on taking many road trips, and with a 4WD trans, I wasn't taking any chances! By the way, the Trans cooler I used was a Derale 19-Row 13x7x2, which was a replacement for the previous one I had picked up a 13x6x2, I really wanted a trans cooler that fit the bottom grill opening which is about 17" wide.......I might still consider upgrading to a much larger cooler from the F-150 in the near future which will allow me to cut out that stupid tube style cooler Ford used, that thing is pathetic!

As you can see my fitting dilemma - after turning the black cooler right side up, it wouldn't fit, and not to mention at this point I already had the studs welded $20.......had to make another trip to the shop to get the two brackets welded, an additional $40 - I need to learn to weld, that was some B.S!

So, I had to refit everything with the coolers upright, they wouldn't fit, now, for some reason, Ford decided to mount the FUDGING radiator, condenser and fans on to this plastic frame/shroud that is almost one unit, I can't imagine the nightmare I am going to have when I decide to replace the radiator with an all aluminium unit in the near future. Anyway, another thing that is dumb on my part, I WAS NOT WILLING TO SACRIFICE ANY AMOUNT OF COOLING, the bumper support bar was the ONLY metal behind the bumper, so after mounting the 30-row at the bottom, the bar covered about 1/4 of the cooler, I DID NOT LIKE THAT, so I AGAIN SWITCHED, but I had opted for bottom position cause it was too tall to fit on the studs that had already been welded.
Anyway, after about 3 hrs of frustration, I remembered everything is PLASTIC!!! so I cut two holes at the top and everything fit perfectly.
I was originally reluctant to do this because I went OVERKILL and used 5/8 - 250 Psi push-lock braided hoses from summit racing, these hoses are MASSIVE and last a lifetime but I the grill was going to be in the way, but I found that if I cut a hole in the front, I will have enough room to route them from the cooler and into this hole, so a circular saw was in order!

Now because I was able to move the 30-row to the top again, it put the hoses running really close to the headers, heat shields were in order, these protect the hoses from burning up and failing........and these hoses were SUPER EXPENSIVE, $60 for 10ft, WHAT THE FUDGE?!!!

I used 1/2 push-lock NON-Braided lines for the trans, one, because the trans uses 1/2 lines and two, those braided lines almost broke my wrist trying to fit them on to the fittings!!! Took me 45 min to get those hoses onto the 4 fittings they provided, so I wasn't willing to go through that again, the Oil pressure is much higher than a the trans pressure, reason for my over kill, oil can run as high as 80 psi but a tranny runs about 4 - 10 psi at the cooling lines, so I didn't want to risk a blow out. I also added clamps to my hoses even though they weren't required.

I didn't add temp sensors as I don't know how to wire anything, I would've loved to see the temp drop on my Engine oil and also on my trans. Originally, the 30-row was going to be used for the transmission because it worries me the most, 4WD aren't your most durable trans unless it's a Skyline or Subaru, trucks use transfer cases, our 4WD trannies tgo me seem to be AWD systems to me, so I don't trust them.........the replacement cost of the 4WD tranny is $4,700!!!

Now, after everything is complete and I am back on the road, I did notice a slight noise, I can't pin point if it is from the trans or engine, it became much less as I only added one quart of trans oil to my tranny, so I added a second. My truck now runs 7 QUARTS of synthetic oil rather than 6 Quarts, thanks to the over sized cooler, but I do know that on every oil change, one Quart of old oil will remain in the system..........bummer, after being ripped off on the last oil change as the fools didn't change the oil and I trusted these guys, so I didn't check (had being going to the shop for over 12yrs, took over 20 diff cars to them - I used to buy and sell cars), I am doing my own oil changes. I hate doing oil changes as I had an accident where the oil leaked into my truck and was pissed, $10 isn't anything but since I want peace of mind that the job was done, I am doing my own changes.......

I am also going to try running my car with 10w-30 Full synthetic, I should have run cheap oil first to clean the motor as the oil that came out was black, but I stupidly put the synthetic, now I am going to run it about 500 miles and then change the oil again.

I am still in the consideration stages, but I MIGHT swap out the Derale cooler in favor of an F-150 sourced Trans cooler, it would fit perfectly covering the entire bottom grill and I also want to completely remove the pitiful Ford cooler out of the loop and those crappy crimped hoses, I didn't do this at the time as it took me 4 days to complete and Fri nights and Sat nights are my big $$$$$ days with my 6 passenger SUV. Had to go to work..........

Complete Install: