The first thing to do I would think is to run apache in single server mode. (I think httpd -x).

My first thought would be global variables sticking around due to the persistant perl process.

After that, it shouldn't be too hard if you keep it simple. Try running your test suite under mason. Most of the scripts should be trivial to turn into mason components.

Can your tests run in a loop/persistant environment? Can 2 processes run in a loop together?