Topic: Team Bad Dads racing build: 2005 Dodge Caravan.
First: here’s the picture thread. The first are how the van sat before I ripped into it, the last half is the end of day 1. I’ll update the thread and caption as the build continues.
The quick narrative:
This is a 2005 dodge caravan SXT that we have owned since … time immemorial. I think we bought it almost new. It currently has 230,000 miles on it and has been a workhorse the whole time. My brother has driven it across multiple states- and not too long ago. I trust the thing to keep moving forever.
It has a 3.8 L v6 that the caravan shared with a few other cars, notably the Cherokee of that era.
I’ve been wanting to field a team for years, since I was lucky enough to tag along to a few races with zero energy racing in a primer gray del sol with a Lexus engine. Those guys knew what they were doing. I do not.
My mother passed a few months ago and my father and I had really spent all of our time caring for her the last few years. When she passed, there was a lot of rearranging to do in our lives, one of which was liquidating the cars we had somehow accumulated and never had time to liquidate. We sold her van, one old truck, and were going to scrap this van, until I talked dad into seeing it as a canvas for his hare-brained ideas and need to tinker.
Dad’s 72 and is basically the stereotype of an old man who’s never had his ADD diagnosed or treated. He hoards tools, projects, and other detritus. I have given up trying to change and have decided we’ll use it to get this car on the track and give him an opportunity to finally see what Lemons is about. I feel like these people are his people, he just never found them.
So I’m going at it and getting his help when I can. Did I mention I broke my collarbone last month and only have one good arm? This’ll be fun.
Anyway- the goals for the van is pretty simple:
1. Weight reduction. I’m stripping it to metal on the interior there’s lots of scary points of failure on this build, and all can be mitigated with weight reduction. Cooling, brakes, drivetrain abuse, handling, tires, all of it. So weight reduction. Seats, AC, dash… it’ll be a box on wheels. I’m excited to see how much I can actually eliminate.
2. Safety. I’m having a roll cage fabbed and installed. This will be the only thing I don’t do in-house, as I’ve been told is wise. I’m glad, after the first day of stripping, that I’m seeing plenty of good contact points for plates.
3. Breathing: going to pull the air box and install a high flow air filter and delete what obstructions I can in the diwn stream. Probably a catalytic converter delete. Maybe some badly fabbed side pipes?
Looking forward to all ideas and thoughts. I’ve done a good amount of wrenching on my motorcycles but this is a different beast and I’ll make a ton of mistakes for you to enjoy.
