Baby Viper: ’87 Plymouth Caravelle GTS

History on the car:

Previous owner worked at an Oakville, Ontairo Chrysler dealership and bought the 1987 Plymouth Caravelle SE new. Car was ‘sold’ to his son who took car of it and made the major cosmetic changes you see that are oh-so-obvious. I have a goodly stack of papers of work that has been done to the car at the dealership where his father works. In 1999, while attending the Ontario Moparfest, I ran into a friend of mine from my town. At the time we both owned green Dodge Darts(Mine a ’72, his a 68). He told me about this car he just bought and go take a look at it. So I made my way over to it and loved it from the start. I had this itching feeling to buy a Turbo Dodge product for awhile at that point. Preferablly I would loved to have had an Omni GLH-T but the pure look of this car was enough.

I begged my friend all night to trade me for my ’72 Dart or an ’86 Lancer that I just redid the head on. He just laughed at my folly and shrugged me off. Two weeks later he came to my work and asked if I wanted to buy the car. We struck a deal and I purchased my first Turbo Dodge for $1500 Cdn.

So, I had to sell my Dart to purchase the Caravelle. I had done just about everything short of swapping in a V8 into the car and couldn’t afford the estimated $1000 it would cost me in parts(and that’s from knowing people!) So, I opted for a Turbo car to go faster, plus it looked cool. The car needed nothing for a Safety Certificate and an emission test has been done only 5 months ago. Being that it was within the 6 month limit I didn’t need to do it again until my License renewal(which it passed, more on that later).

Since owning it, I have done a fair bit of modification to it. Most of which to try and get it runnning just the way I wanted it to, the rest to try and get it running faster :) My goal is to make this car a 15 second 1/4mile while still getting decent mileage. Decent being 500kms(300 miles) per tank full on the highway and no less than 400kms(240ish Miles) in the city. As it stands to date, the most I have ever gotten from a tank is 454kms. Close but much has changed since then.

Specifications:

Year:   1987

Make:   Plymouth

Model:  Caravelle SE

Body:   4 Door

Engine: 2.2L Turbo 1

        Block: 1985 T1

        Head:  1988 TBI Roller Cam, Rebuilt by Head & Block

Tranny: A-413

        Omni/Horizon Gearing(will get Ratio)

Tires:  195/60R15(Winter) on 15" Dodge 'Swiss Chese' Rims

        Summer Tires to follow next season

        Previous: 205/60R14 Goodyear Eagle VR60 on 14" Mangles Star Rims

Colour: Current - Viper Blue with Dual White Racing Stripes (a la Viper GTS)

        Previous - Dark Blue

Other:  K& N Drop-in Filter

        Thrush Muffler

1/4 Mile Run: 16.79@79.7mph, Spring of 1999

Stuff that has been done to the car prior to my ownership:

- Thrush Muffler That was the major stuff. Some typical stuff like brakes, gaskets and such as well.Things that I have done since September 1999:

- Scripted “Caravelle” lettering from Early 80′s RWD Caravelle

- “GTS” Badging from LeBaron GTS

- Bought used set of 15″ Swiss Cheese Rims($50 Cdn! Good Shape!)

Revised June 14, 2001, D.B.