How would this be a safe rig? 400 lb hitch dry weight means it'll likely be 500 lbs or more once he gets it loaded for camping. With the soft rear suspension of a minivan and a receiver attachment that's probably rated for 350 lbs max, this is an accident waiting to happen! What if the receiver breaks loose from the van and the trailer careens across traffic and hits someone head-on? Or he's going around a curve and something in the suspension breaks, propelling the whole rig in the wrong direction?
That Pentastar is not a magic wand to make all the problems go away. All that frontal area will make the tranny hot as heck, too.