Deleting the F355 transmission cooler / exchanger, has anyone done this?

The 355 and 36O both have unconventional transmission coolers whereby water is circulated around thin tubes with gear oil in them in a heat "exchanger" in the valley of the V of the engine.

This has proven problematic as over time the tubes can leak causing oil to get into the cooling system and water to literally fill the gearbox!

I believe a purpose of the exchanger is simply to heat up the gear oil faster and get around Ferrari's well known notchy second gear while the gearbox is cold.

But is this necessary? Can this gearbox run without a cooler? Perhaps a better course of action is to add heat insulation between the gearbox and the cats which run close by on either side of the gearbox?

Has anyone deleted the cooler on either the 355 or 360 and taken heat measurements to see how effective that exchanger is at cooling the gearbox?

I also wonder how much restriction that cooler adds to the gear oil system.

I note the Aston Martin V12 Vantage 6 speed has an oil cooler air to air external. However, the 7 speed gearbox, also a manual gearbox, does not have the cooler! And its putting out nearly 200 hp more than the 355 and weighs some 800 pounds more as well.

For those of us living in arm climates, is this "exchanger" really necessary?

 

Yes,this is true. I know on the F355 CH cars they put a traditional oil cooler up front and fed cool air to it via the removal of the driver's side fog light. But a PITA to relocate it all the way up there and to lose the Fog Light.

 

I wonder if anyone has taken temperature measurements with and without the cooler to see how hot the gear oil gets without the exchanger. Also wonder if would not be better off with heat insulation blocking the heat from the two cats that are alongside the gearbox.

 

That was my thought: That this really is not a cooler for the gearbox but rather a warmer to bring it up to warm temperatures faster given Ferrari's reputation at the time for having gearboxes that had difficulty going into 2nd gear until warm. Although that seemed remedied by using different/better gear oils.