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I was thinking something very similar along those lines Nemo. I was thinking I'd tee into the coolant lines going to the throttle body or heater core to get the coolant, pass it through a heating block mounted to trans (something similar to what was shown above) and then tee it back into the system downstream.
To control it, I would ideally like to use a solenoid valve. I would also monitor engine temperature and transmission temperature. Normal operation would be to leave the solenoid closed until the engine is up to 130-140F. This gets it out of its high idle / cold start mode, since the engine is more important to warm up than trans. After the engine hits that temp, the solenoid would open up and the coolant would be used to heat up the transmission. At some set temperature, the solenoid could close if the transmission gets too warm. If not, it would happily run at ~180F just like the engine.
Is this overly complex? Perhaps. But, I will have at least one arduino onboard controlling another modification, so adding a temp sensor and a solenoid valve wouldn't be difficult at all.
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