Sweeeeeeet!

 

Making interesting engines swaps in cars is one thing but what about taste? Putting a Viper's V10 into a Caravan is an insult to the V10.

 

Why? Fantastic sleeper.

 

Taking the kids from Home to Soccer practice:

stock engine- 15 minutes

swap with Viper V10- 15 seconds

 

You can't get much more dork appeal than the Caravan. This will be like the little nerd with a black belt in karate.

 

Best of luck!

Probably be easier to mate the Caravan body to a 2500 series Dodge Truck frame than to reinforce the unibody to handle the Viper engine (would be my guess).

 

Dumb choice! Wrong body for SO-OOOOOO many reasons! Fugly, is just one of them.

 

Instead of the juicebox stains being on the floor, they will now be on the back window.

 

How can it be a sleeper? Wouldn't you need to lift the body a noticeable amount to fit a RWD chassis and driveshaft tunnel underneath? Or is he going to tear up the middle floor of the Caravan from front to back?



Nice.

 

I'm sure he'll have to do some form of lift to make it work but he's done prior engine transplants in the past so it's nothing new for the prof in question. And while the Caravan is probably not the best body to use it does up the "sleeper" status of this car big time

 

He should put it in the back inside and run the drive line up front to show off the engine resulting in some wicked burn outs .

 

Just build a tubular chassis that intertwines with the unibody structure and provides a mounting point for the drivetrain.

Another big issue will be the inset to the cabin. You'll have to fab a removable access panel like on RWD vans and it will take most of the leg room away pushing the pedals to the outside and making it a bit awkward to sit up front.

 

I'd just go straight and put the engine behind the front seats, with gearbox directly connected to the axle, no prop shaft. That said you'd probably need some kind of CV joint instead of a single U-joint then or maybe just a short double-cardan joint. Or, if you put a independent suspension just use a guibo

 

Years ago, Chrysler installed turbo charged, 4 cylinder motors in the Dodge Caravans. There was a story, last year, of a guy who runs a faux wood paneled Caravan (one of the turbo charged ones) at the local drag strip and beats the snot out of the Camaros, Mustangs andjust about any wannabes that go against him. He has a site on the internet and talks (a very smart guy by his review of how he tweaked the motor and trans to get the performance) about the van. He chuckles about how he gets giggles as he stands in line awaiting his turn but looks at the guys he just flogged with his little van. All I can say is hahaha.
But you are correct. Wasting a V-10 on a Caravan? Who has V-10's laying around like this?

 

dodge should build this one... but eith a v24