Day 4: Retirement

Well, day four was exciting, sad and happy all in one. I got a buyer for some essential engine parts so I cranked the girl up and took her for one last ride to say goodbye for now. A good hour or so was spent zooming around on our local streets here taking some of my family members for one last ride in the old family car before I put her out of commission for an unknown amount of time. Now, there is something worth stating here. With the removal of the intake, (Excluding the MAF I had to temporarily put it back on to start the car.) exhaust and all that weight the MPV already acts like a sports sedan, and pulled 0-60 in a little under seven seconds with the overdrive on of course. It was a lot of fun to put the car through her paces one last time.
But then I had to move on and remove the distributor rendering the car undriveable for obvious reasons. Pretty straight forward and easy, but this marks a turning point, I'm actually doing this, I don't have the money yet, but hopefully something with come through and I can get started in earnest. Whether I sell enough parts to fund this or I get a part-time job I don't know but I certainly hope for either, but with the removal of a key part of the engine this signifies no going back to the old JEV6 now. The family car has been laid to rest and a workhorse for our family shall never be the same again...
Now the real adventure starts, turning a minivan/SUV crossover into a SCCA worthy race car.


Drove down the road to a gravel parking lot to get some final pictures of her before I retire the old JEV6.

The stickers shall be coming off when I repaint her.

Drove back home and popped the hood to get to work.
The distributor all hooked up like it's supposed to be.

After you pull the spark plug wires and remove the connectors from the distributor this is the only bolt holding it down. This is mostly a reference picture so we can get a good idea of where to set the distributor to get started with ignition timing. (Hopefully I won't be doing this again on this engine, but you never know.)

Removed. Noooo! There's a hole in my engine now! Plugged it with a red mechanics rag.

Also pulled the fan, fan shroud, and fan clutch off. Whee. Makes the engine compartment start to look really empty.

 Here's the fan clutch. This is not an original clutch, the original is in a box somewhere on one of my workbenches needing to be fixed.

Distributor after it was pulled off. Nothing special really, it's the original and it's in really good condition, my buyer is getting a steal of a price for it because I'm so desperate for the money. Anyway I'll get the gunk cleaned off of it and packed away in a box for shipping later.

And that's it for day four. Didn't do much aside from those joyrides. Heh, Imma miss being able to drive this girl up and down the driveway occasionally.

Day 2: The Sound of Potential

Day two has come and gone. I didn't get much done today, put some trim back on the car after giving it a good scrub down. Pulled the exhaust out from under it and drove it around in it's un-muffled state for about ten minutes with an ear-to-ear grin on my face. Oh yeah, also threw some new fuses in and checked all the electronics, they all seem to work fine.

This JEV6 is a noisy booger! I mean, I thought the two massive mufflers were overkill, but now I know why they added them onto the van. It was so much fun to rumble around on our property with the floors shaking to the bass rumble of the engine, honestly though, a straight pipe system may be too loud for the finished product. I'd still like to be able to hear the radio while I'm drivin' around yah know?

The roof. It was sooooo dirty to begin with. Much cleaner now.

The hood where it now sits in my shop. I should have take a before and after photo of the underside. It was like black to begin with. Now the underside has the best paint on the car.

The second catalytic converter, and first muffler out from under the MPV. The first cat is still up in there just to keep the exhaust gases under the vehicle in case I have to move it around some.

Second muffler.

That's about it. I recorded a video showing just how loud this van is without a muffler. It doesn't do it justice, trust me, my ears hurt afterwards. Anyway, more to come soon!

Day 1: Starting the Teardown

Alright, right off the bat Imma say this. I'm not labeling this as literal days, these are just the days I work on the vehicles. Also, if you see any parts coming off the car you want; please contact me, we can probably work something out.

Okay first day! Today I just did a bunch of simple stuff, pulled the hood and some trim off. Got most of the exhaust unbolted and dropped down. Pulled part of the intake off... and that's about it, gonna wait for some fuses before I do much of anything else so I can check to make sure she still runs. (I shorted the battery out a few days ago in a freak accident, blew the main fuses. Hopefully didn't damage the electronics though.)


With the hood and grill removed. Pulled the hood off for ease of access, same for the grill.

You can see the exhaust laying on the floor here, I had to cut the bolts holding with a Dremel tool because they were rusted solid. No damage to the exhaust system itself though. Getting it out from under the car should be fun without any form of lift. I'm really beginning to wish I had a lift and it's only the first day.

You can see where I pulled the intake scoop off the filter here.

Not terrible much done today, but hey! It's progress, you gotta start somewhere.