[fjb37]

The 3.3L tranny has a lower final drive gear ratio so hooking a 3.8L to it will make the van somewhat of a hot rod over what it was before. Should be fun! Use the 3.8L PCM but make sure that it will match your BCM if your van doesn't have anti-theft as the anti-theft system is shared between the two AFAIK & you can have problems if an anti-theft equiped PCM or BCM is installed in a non-equiped van.
Should smoke the right front tire real good. Might want to make sure that the differential pin is secured with the latest fix. Just my $0.02.

FredB

 

[Tim Schmidt]

I have a good 3.3 from a 1997 van, i would beam it up to you but my teleporter is down at the moment.

 

[NeonHomer]

I ended up just buying a reman'd 3.3 for the van. I'm building it for my mother, to replace her older 94 Caravan. I need it to be reliable and trouble free.

Maybe I will just sell the 3.8 to recoup some of the money spent on the 3.3......

 

[The Electron]

What do y'all know about problems when using 2nd gen engines in 3rd gen vans, and vice versa?

 

[John Wood]

What do y'all know about problems when using 2nd gen engines in 3rd gen vans, and vice versa?

The 3rd Gen minivans were OBDII compliant and a few changes took place. The basic long block should work, but sensors and electronics will be different. The 3.0 probably had the bigest changes in 1996 when they replaced the opical distributor with a Hall-Effect unit and added a flex plate with timing slots and a crank position sensor on the transmission bell housing.