Alright, today marks the first day of my massive undertaking of turning my old '97 Mazda MPV into a race-ready machine. How many of you remember the days of your childhood being shuttled around in your parents minivan? For me it was a comforting thing, we've had this van for almost as long as I can remember and I love it to death. This is also the first driver I've ever owned, (I don't say my first car because I've had a truck since I was fourteen and I still haven't driven it on the road.) so there's a lot of bonding I've done with this car. The old JE engine has given me a lot of pleasure on the road and she's gotten me out of sticky situations more than once. (Think semi-truck sandwich.) But unfortunately, sometime in the past few years we took it to an express lube somewhere and they overfilled the girl. Most of the seals and gaskets on the engine are now gone. She runs, but it got to the point where I was adding more oil than gas every week, so it was time for something to go. Now me, being an avid car enthusiast and mechanic-in-training, I enjoy going fast and I enjoy working on vehicles, so I've decided to do something crazy and off-the-wall. I'm going to put a VG30DETT into the MPV. I've only ever seen this done once before, and it was in fact done right by a certain D. Swensonhimer.
Now, this won't be the same as what Swensonhimer has done, (Obviously I don't want to copy him, that's just wrong.) namely because my MPV is a little newer. (More electronics to deal with. Whoopee.) But I'm going a little farther than he went. This car isn't going to be a sleeper, eventually I plan to compete in the SCCA Solo racing events with this vehicle, so a new suspension system is a must, as well as a rollcage. But I'm getting ahead of myself. This will not be completed in just a few months, this project may take me years, mainly because of funding. I'm parting out the engine and transmission in hopes to get enough money to buy a used 300ZX Fairlady Z32, and then going from there, hopefully parting out what's left of the 300ZX for more funding. But we'll see.Whatever the case, it may take me years, but this car will be finished someday.
This is where she's sat for the past few months. I needed to get her moved somewhere out of the elements, I do plan to repaint as soon as the engine is out, as there are some rust spots and such that bother me.
The original JE V6 by Mazda. A wonderful little engine, this one has 280,000 miles on it and still ran strong until that jiffy lube killed her.
After moving her down into my workshop. It's a tight fit at the moment, but hopefully we'll get some stuff moved out of there soon. She looks so much happier out of the weather.
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