not sure how the air gets through them, the ones i've seen had the holes going from side to side. (if the holes went front to back, they could get plugged with debris) in theory, the surfaces of the tubes expose the trans fluid to a larger surface for heat exchanging. a good trans cooler placed after the radiator cooling tank should work well enough by itself. the pan is deeper, but as mentioned above, you don't get to pickup from the bottom of the pan. you do get a slightly larger fluid capacity though.