Hey guys, I want to convert my 1997 Caravan to a v8, and RWD.

How hard would it be to drop in a 5.7L small block chevy engine, and a rear end out of a 70s Camaro/Trans Am into my van?

Some questions

1) Do the halfshafts carry any load, or provide some sort of lateral stability for the wheel? Can I delete them without compromising anything.

2) Can I use the stock rad with the 5.7L v8?

3) I assume all the gauges will need replacing?

4) How hard will it be to weld in a trans crossmember.

5) How hard will it be to shift the mounting location of the leaf springs, and will they work with a 70s Camaro/Trans Am rear end? or will I need the springs out of a Camaro/Trans Am/Nova etc. Or will it be easier to modify the rear end to accept stock leaf spring location.

6) How hard will it be to fab up engine mounts to, i assume a front subframe, or will I need to fab another crossmember for the engine

7) Any problem with cutting up the floor and firewall to build a trans tunnel?

8) Can I keep the heater core, or do I need a new one.

9) How easy will it be to rewire the ignition to start the engine. I will be deleting all the ecu crap.

10) I'd probably fab up some brackets or console to mount a hurst shifter for the trans.

11) How hard will it bee to run a propshaft back to the rear diff.

12) How to I integrate everything into the electrical.

13) Any other problems you see?


I am doing this because the '97 caravan is my dad's daily driver, and its pretty much going to scrap and he's getting something new. Chrysler engines and transmissions are unreliable, and this is no exception. Plus, like every other chrysler you see it's rusting out. So I'd be practicing my body work skills also.

I could use something to drive to college with when it rains, or snows, since all I own are muscle cars and they only come out when the sun does.

I am giving myself a budget of around $200-$400 for this. I already have the rear end, trans, and I have a welder and easy access to steel and sheet metal so fab work shouldn't be a problem. I can get an engine for pretty much free also.

I'd need to at least buy gauges, custom length driveshaft, shifter, brake lines, probably a proportioning valve, maybe a rad, engine mounts, and whatever I need to sort out the electrical. Anything else?

This is all preliminary obviously, I'm just starting to work out the details.

 

Your best bet on this is to take a frame from an s10 or car that can house the drivetrain and fabricate the van body on that. You are going to run into fitment issues on just about every aspect of this. But to answer your questions:

1. You should be able to just remove the halfshafts as far as structure is concerned however the rack is going to be right in the way of the engine/transmission.
2. Radiator should be fine assuming you can get the hoses to it.
3. Yes you will have to use aftermarket guages unless you can use the Caravan sensors or something that has similar signals.
4. This is where things get fun. There isn't a frame that sits below the body so you would have to fabricate some kind of a drop down crossmember that is going to eat up all of your ground clearance.
5. I'm not sure on this one. I would think you could use the Caravan springs with the rear end.
6. The engine/transmission mounts pretty high on the "frame" on the Caravan so you would have to make something that drops down and the engine would end up kind of hanging off the factory mounting location.
7. Cut away but keep in mind that the body is part of the structure more so than a body on frame vehicle.
8. This will depend on how 7 goes.
9. If you have a wiring diagram to follow it shouldn't be a problem. You can always put in an aftermarket ignition switch.
10. Ok.
11. Once you get the engine, transmission and rear end in place you should be able to measure and a driveline shop can make a shaft for you. I did this in my Dakota when I swapped to a manual.
12. Be very diligent on what wires you cut/rewire. I would try to keep as much original Caravan stuff as I could.
13. I highly doubt your budget is realistic and I depending on how much time you have I'd say you have a years worth of work ahead of you. (Driveshaft = $200, Oil/Trans fluid/coolant/rear gear oil = $100, etc...)

 

Thanks for the input.

I have not thought about the rack + pinion. What do you think would be the best way around that?

And as for the budget, I have tons of motor oil, gear oil, coolant, and atf sitting on the shelf. The custom drivshaft will be the most expensive thing I think. Unless the solution to the rack and pinion is expensive. Most everything else is labour or can be found in a junkyard.

I won't be using an s10 frame since I want this to be as cheap as possible, and just work with what I got.

 

Wow, this sounds like a neat conversion!!
Why not take a drive train out of a chevy Astro van?
The 4.3 v6 is not ever going to come close a 350 chev small block, but it might fit better than a 350 ..

 

Rack and pinion would be the hardest part in my mind, that has to be done nearly perfectly or the van is unsafe. Relocating it and dealing with the steering column is also brutal. Most everything else should be straightforward if you can fabricate on the side. In my mind not using a 5.7L hemi truck engine/2WD tranny would be a shame.

If it is a 3.0L OHC engine, they can handle some boost and can be made to handle more boost. IF you can fabricate the hotside, take that $400 and go find a turbo off something in the wreckers and fab it in. I forget the exact injectors you need, but that is a Google step away. You can turbo a 3.0L V6 Caravan for next to nothing really, sure wish the bottom end of the 3.3/3.8L engines could take any boost reliably, I'd do it just for the extra ooomph when towing.

I have this same dream, it wouldn't be that hard to just weld in the support to the unibody for a RWD conversion. Everything is already set deep on the 02.

I guess I should end with that unless you have an extreme knowledge of wiring, you're either custom wiring everything to work or you have to be using the stock engine harness somehow. That is the other issue with the 02 with everything relying on the BCM to work. That'll end the project quicker than anything else in my mind.

 

Yeap, I'm not sure exactly what I'll be doing with the rack and pinion just yet.

I'm going to build a 7.4L engine for the corvette, take the corvette engine and put that in the camaro, and use the camaro engine in the caravan. And the engine/trans is pretty much junk on the caravan.

I'm not sure about the BCM, or what it controls, or why I need the stock engine harness? I'm dropping in a carbed engine, so no electronics there.

Will eliminating the engine/trans cause the BCM not to function? I have not looked at any wiring diagrams yet.

 

I'm not as well versed as to how badly the BCM is tied into everything on your model year, I do know that nothing works without it on 01+ vans. If you are good at wiring this is not that big of an issue, just ALOT of work.