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Thread: 89 Caravan ES 2.4 SRT-4 Swap

  1. #41
    Supporting Member II Turbo Mopar Contributor A.J.'s Avatar
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    Re: 89 Caravan ES 2.4 SRT-4 Swap

    There was a thread I saw a little while ago about putting the 41TE onto a 2.2/2.5. Vic (DOHCRT) came by my shop and we set a A413 and a 31TH next to each other and contemplating cutting the starter bolt patten out of the bell housing of a A413 and welding it onto a 41TE. There was actually an extra dowel pin in the 31TH so it could be done to that so maybe the 41TE had it too. I have a 41TE, 31TH, A413, at my shop and an A555 in my shed and the steel plates (the one that goes between the engine and the trans) for a 2.2/2.5 and a 2.4 and I could line all these up and take pictures to see if it's feasible or practical to cut the bell housing starter pattern out of one trans and weld it on to the other so you have have the engine/trans/starter location that you want.

  2. #42
    Moderator Turbo Mopar Staff Vigo's Avatar
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    Re: 89 Caravan ES 2.4 SRT-4 Swap

    Well, 41te on a 2.4 is easy because there are cases MADE for it. If you're talking about adapting a 568 to run a front-mounted starter, I would consider that if i could do my own aluminum welding (sad face..), but i'm not sure i could beg enough time/commitment from any of my aluminum-welding acquaintances to get it done right at a reasonable price. It's something to think about, though.

    Dont push the red button.You hear me?

  3. #43
    Supporting Member II Turbo Mopar Contributor A.J.'s Avatar
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    Re: 89 Caravan ES 2.4 SRT-4 Swap

    I'm not talking about bolting a 41TE to a 2.4, I'm talking about if bolting a 41TE to a 2.2/2.5 is possible with a little welding to the bell housing then bolting a 555/523/568 to a 2.4 with a little bell housing welding is possible.. It was about moving the starter bulge/bolt pattern from a rear start trans to a front starter trans. I have at hand ALL 4 transmission styles and both engine templates for easy mock up and documentation.

    The shitty part about the turbo-mopar crowd is the penny pinching and the I-must-do-it-myself attitude. It's amazing to see people work harder and bang their heads agaist the wall rather than spend a little money to pay someone to do it right and/or get it done in a fraction of the time. I understand the satisfaction of doing it yourself to 1) save a buck and 2) saying YOU built it. But at some point you have to farm something things out to get it done or go faster. I didn't like having to pay to have a custom converter made but the $90 off the shelf 2900 stall converter couldn't get the job done and since I can't buy or build a 3500 stall LU converter I had to bite the bullet and PAY to have one made. The converter shop I chose SUCKED so I had to pay AGAIN to have another one made. I'm not happy about it but when you're blazing new trails you gotta do what needs to be done. Unfortunately, most of the time that costs money or having to have someone else do it.

  4. #44
    Supporting Member Turbo Mopar Contributor turbo84voyager's Avatar
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    Re: 89 Caravan ES 2.4 SRT-4 Swap

    AJ, I agree with the attitude of penny pinching is not the best route especially with something like this. Anything is possible but I spent a lot of time looking into aftermarket starters and trying to see if I can get something else to work as well as buying replacement starters trying to get it to clear the block. I looked into re-clocking the ND starter. I talked to the local guy that rebuilds starters. I have one of rich's dust shields for this. I had several people including a machinist look at this. I thought about cutting the starter bulge out and welding it in the front. My concern is you have to make sure you are right on or the starter will / could bind or be noisy. If it was like a GM style where it could be shimmed it would not be as much of an issue. Plus since the 5-spds are getting harder to find why take a chance of destroying a case. My conclusion was if I want to bolt one of our 5-spds to a 2.4 its easier to just get an early block and be done with it. No extra custom work is needed and there is plenty of room in the back of the block. I already had a later 2.4, a new crank, and all of the machine work done so I was not going to scrap the block and head. This is when I decided ill put it in the van and if everything goes good ill build another one using an older block for the shadow. When I built this I did not want to do it half a--ed and in my opinion there are not many options to do the 5-spd on one of these without doing atleast something that way. I dumped quite a bit of money into the engine from a new mopar crank, CP pistons, eagle rods, all arp fasteners, Darrel Cox oiling system, everything was balanced, head work, plus 1mm os valves, etc.. The only thing I really skimped on was the differential. I rebuilt it with new parts but a limited slip was a little out of the budget at the time. The last thing I wanted after all of this was to have starter problems.
    Justin
    84 Plymouth Voyager LE 2.5 Intercooled Turbo 5-spd - Only 84 Turbo Van!
    89 Dodge Caravan ES 2.4 SRT-4 Intercooled Turbo (46 trim, OS Valves, CP Pistons, Eagle Rods, NPR IC) Built 31th trans
    91 Dodge Shadow Convertible 2.5 Intercooled Turbo A555 5-spd
    01 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP - 3.8 supercharged! Only 5K miles....
    01 Subaru Forester - Daily Driver
    07 Yamaha FJR 1300 140+ HP on 2 wheels
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    94 Bobcat 763 Skidloader 2.2 Kubota Diesel
    SV-SDAC Member

  5. #45
    Moderator Turbo Mopar Staff Vigo's Avatar
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    Re: 89 Caravan ES 2.4 SRT-4 Swap

    I dont think it would be too technically difficult to get the alignment right, just tedious. On a manual you could put a complete clutch/pp/flywheel assembly on the input shaft, shim up the bottom so it didnt sag, bolt a starter to the segment of bellhousing it bolts to, pop out the gear, build some kind of holding jig to hold it where the teeth are in good alignment, and tack the bellhousing parts together, then bolt the whole thing to an engine block for strength and finish the welding. Not hard, just very tedious. You would have to go slow, recheck constantly, and do tons of fiddling. In short, the kind of work i dont enjoy doing for free.

    I think the fact that i own this van is plenty of evidence of being willing to pay to get certain things done. I bought this van for its paintjob, at way less than a similar paintjob/bodywork would have cost on my own van, and basically got an srt4 swap for free. Even at what i paid, it's still probably the most cost effective 2.4 swapped caravan on the forum, but of course i didn't get the usual satisfaction of doing it myself. If you look at http://www.turbo-mopar.com/forums/sh...rth&highlight= you see people who claim they wouldn't pay more than $1200 for a low miles survivor car. I paid multiples of that for my van and still got one of the best deals i've ever seen go down on this forum because i was willing to pay for it. Now all of my labor time will go into swapping all the better stuff from my other van onto this one so that i will have one very nice, very modified, very functional van. I do have plans for the engine bay, but that will come farther down the road since there is no good reason to take apart a running srt4 setup until the next thing is totally ready to drop in.

    Anyway, i dont want to clutter up your thread with 5spd talk if that's not what you want to talk about. This has been good info for anyone looking into the swap, though. Thanks for the info.

    Dont push the red button.You hear me?

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