The 3.0 had major engine seal issues. I had to do them twice at like $700 a pop which was a lot back then . It was a very smooth engine but didnt creat a whole lot of HP at 150 HP . When I wasnt dealing with oil seal problems it ran very well and was very smooth . You couldn’t kill the trusty old 3 speed torqueflite .
It wasn’t without it issues, but was a great trans… Had a torque converter shudder issue and sometimes a 1-2 harsh shift… And one or both of the transfer nut(s) would come loose and the drive/driven gear would walk out and rub the rear cover, made a strange noise but very distinctive if you had heard it before. pop the cover off and impact the nut right back on if it hadn’t rubbed a hole through it…
Yeah the cam seals leaked a lot, that was when you would have to replace those peanut lifters at $12 each…
I put a water pump on one that was made in Poland, never seen that before… But very easy timing belt to replace…
Why? Crank up the wastegate to increase boost, bring the rpm up to load the engine against the torque convertor to build boost and… tire smoke! Turbos are complemented by automatics.
You could get a manual Turbo Caravan in 1989 but they’re rare. Far easier to find one with the automatic.
In my day we had the steam engine conversion kit if we wanted more power. That stopped when they added nuclear instead of just wood and coal to our choice of fuel. It was impractical.
The Friday episode of Engine Masters ran dyno tests on a NA carbureted BBC vs a supercharged Ford 363. Both had HP in excess of 1000 and the Ford actually had about 10 HP more at peak. The BBC had way more HP throughout the RPM range though. The hosts thought that a turbo charged 363 could have had way more HP at lower RPMs by spooling it up before making a run as you suggest. Anyway, they concluded that the NA BBC was a much better choice than a supercharged small block for drag racing.
I watch engine masters also… That was a good episode…
That was David’s personal Dart 582ci BBC and does not have one single OE BBC part on it… Yes it is BadA**…
That engine is being rebuilt after the head broke off the valve and had a party inside the engine, he was running it at 8000 rpm, I think the valve broke at around 3K though, but it is costing him 10K to 12K to repair the engine…
Both those engines were running 116 octane and the BBC was 14.7:1 compression but he is reducing it back down to 12.5:1 for use on 91 octane for an unknown project…
And yes, all the HP in the world doesn’t do you any good if you can’t put it to the ground…
I can beat a Rumble Bee Wide Body 392na from a 15-20 Roll up until about 50mph when his 8 speed drives out of my life… lol… But I am not running enough tire right now to be able to Dig… I just blow the tires off… Especially if I get on the converter… lol
I have owned about half of a dozen Chrysler built minivans starting with an '89 with t[quote=“bcohen2010, post:10, topic:189542, full:true”]
I had a 1995 Caravan with the 3.0L Mitsubishi engine/3-speed automatic, ran it all the way to 209,000 miles when it was destroyed in an accident. Before that, it ran well with no engine or transmission problems. It is correct that the early years of this motor had problems, but those were certainly solved by the early 90’s.
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Mitsubishi 3.0.