Well my mates said put a V8 into your HQ its easy they just bolt in. Well hahahaha really funny..

Here are some of the stuff ups I managed to get a long the way.
ENGINE MOUNTS
Well after putting the engine and th400 trans in together without the HEI dizzy on. I found there wasnt enough room for the hei..
Oh I see the engine mounts go around the other way.. Making the engine further forward and also I then found that one engine mount is slightly taller than the other.
Oh well there goes a few days of fun.

Now I have engine in its time to do a cross member for trans.. I got one and imm it didnt fit.. Still dont know why.. any way turns out that my HQ 202 3 on the tree one will work but at first things werent right..
Oh I see you need another rubber mount that goes between the trans and the cross member and its 30mm instead of like 45mm or so.
Cool..

Now Ill put my shifter into the floor so I used a wreak to tell me where to cut.. All good but what it wont fit there is a transmission in the way..

Ahhh after a while answer take the old crossmember out and put it between to bits of wood and put something heavy in the middle to bend it by a few inches it now has enough room to put my shifter in.

Ok time for the diff I got a salsbury diff out of a 350chev statesman.
yep all good bolted in yeahhh no prob..

Time for the drive shaft messured beween trans and diff and took driveshaft into get yoke and uni put on and get home..
OH it dont fit my diff.. to small..
Thats when I found out the statesman 350chev diff is the same front part as a 1 tonner, the uni is one size one way and bigger the other, back to drive shaft shop for different uni.

Write time to mount my power steering..
Imm no bracket.. after weeks of searching I found someone with a 350chev statesman paid him 20bucks to take his brackets off and draw around them to make a pattern.. Off to my mates and one c&c machine later all cut out welded up and yeah power steer.
Time for alt bracket so tried a few and found they wouldnt line up with my pulleys , back to me mate and made new longer pipe type parts and longer bolts to extend alt out to line up.

Need a flex fan. .got one on auction buy oh the hole in the middle is to small for my pulley.. 23mm or so drill bit later and all good.

Brought headers on auction for hq but only one side would fit the other hit parts of my car so 800 bucks later nice 2.5inch exhaust.
dropping down behind rear guards.

gear shift linkages.
Found some but when I put them in I would move one gear but trans would move like 1.5gears the lengths were wrong. Got me mate to weld up the hole and drill new hole and now they are the same yeahh..

Acclerator
Go to rarespares and ask for a V8 linkage to suit V8 hq the guy said nahh you dont want one of those like I was told .. you want a comodore acclerator cable and link it up to your old linkage that comes through by the booster..
Ok you guys no your stuff.
Oh I have to mount it behind my booster. No prob my booster needs a repaint ill take it out and do that mount the cable and it will be all good..
Take off master cylinder . go in car and I can only get 3 of the 4 bolts off that hold the booster .. the steering column is in the way.
No prob I will drop the steering column down by undoing the bolts under the dash.. Yep all good except it wont go low enough as the seat is in the way..
No prob I will just remove the seat.. imm still no good oh well I will remove the column all together..

Now with half the car apart I finally got the booster out.lol..

Ok now paint booster take steering column apart and put blankout plate to remove the old gear shift on the column.
Put new carpet in, replace bench seat with buckets and get console to suit shifter.. bolt booster in then steering column then new master cylinder .. bleed brakes.

Now time to do front springs I now dont like spring compressors lol.
I then replaced ball joints while the wishbone part was out..
Unfortunally the boy did some of the work and decided that doing a bolt up instead of undoing it was fun and broke the bolt in the welded on nut.. ahhh Grinder later and new nut and bolt.

V8 swaybar and new bushes. yeah easy.
V8 radiator yeahhh easy except the v8 hoses were a little tight in length.

Alt was mounted on same orginal side but the starter motor is on the other .. New extended cable 70 bucks and yeah sorted.

New fuel line and filter between old fuel line and pump and then to carb.
Right time to start car.. Wire up hei straight to battery for power.
One wire to starter and tap it on the battery..
Fuel down carb..
Whaoo its alive.. but oh fuel is pissing out of the carb..
Turns out kneedle and seat so oh well carb kit.. first attempt.
done ...Right try again.. yep runs fine.. oh now for road test with no life insurance rego or any thing.. Cough dies cough dies..
Look up on the net..
Oh acclerator pump not working.. when opening the throttle no squirt of gas going in carb.. Yet to be fixed.

So thats about where im up to..
Now to my mates who said its easy the v8 just drops in.. well I recon I could have climbed to the top of mount everst and back 10 times before this car was done.. And is that easy..

I guess its easy if you have done 3 of them but unless your doing it with someone who has done it before then id suggest just buy one done, it will prob cost you less in the end.

Whats left to do on mine..
Wire up the engine??? ok cant remember where all the wires go lol..
Another trap is that the HQ has a resistor BUILT into the wiring this is so when you start the normal car it puts 12volts to the coil but after starting the coil recieves about 7volts.. I think the other way is a ballis resistor coil.. But with holden hq the wire has resistor in it..

So if you put a HEI I think it needs 12 Volts constant and that wire will have to be bipassed... Least thats what I think..

Oh other things to do .. Inhibertor switch so I cant start in gear..
Shifter has switch on just got to wire up somehow.

Rust fully rebuild my rear wheel arch.. LOoks like fun but I can manage it owning a holden makes you good at these thinks lol..
Fords u just throw them away and start again:)

Fix acclerator pump it appears stuck what have I done lol.

Some rough costs
Engine 1400
Trans 400
Diff 200
Drive shaft yoke 50
drive shaft balanced and uni fitted $130
rear springs 50
front springs 50
front sway bar 50
new bushes 20
Ball joints 50
Radiator 250
Hoses 30
Flex fan 25
Acclelerator cable 30 or so
Master cylinder 80 yep mates rates at the time
New rear shoes and wheel cylinders 70
Shifter 50
COnsole 120
New lid 50
Blankout for steering 50
New carpet 230
Underlay 40
Shifter linkage 25
Crossmember mount 35
Alt bracket 40
Air cleaner 50
Carb kit 75
Radiator cap redline dress up 30
Trans cooler 50
Front shocks 120
Headers 150
Exhaust 800
Battery 95 large one 600cranking amps
New oil and filter 35
Trans fluid 10 litres approx 60
diff oil 20
Brake fluid 17
Bucket seats 150
Total $5107 and to tell you the truth ive forgotten quite a few small things ive brought..
Ive still got certification $250
and any other probs as this stuff is not tested fully ..

I did sell a few old parts prob got 150 for them.and still have old motor.

During this build I saw a HQ 350 quite tidy on auction with 5000 reserve..

Was it all worth it .. immm well It does sound fantastic but I wouldnt go through it all again.. If your more mechinacle then ok.. I can do it all but I dont like doing it.. I like panel work more as things are what they are .. you know to expect more rust than u can see.. But with mechanicle nothing seems to go to plan.

With the exception of a few hours from the boy who moved away.. This was all done by myself.. If you have good mates who are into this kind of thing and dont mind lending a hand it would be a third or half the job I did.

Any advice on the last parts of my project appreciated.
But my engine sounds awesome.. it has 327heads..
A car came out of the carpark the other day a ford fpv I said to my mate my car sounds better than that and it didnt cost 80000 bucks.
And being a holden they always sound better any way lol

I remember putting a 302 Chev and TH400 in an MQ Patrol ute. It was fun too. It took me 5 days from start to finish. But 5 full days.

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If we all had the same (good) taste, who would buy all the Fo

Good on ya Keithy....
Even though it sounds like you had a nightmare of a time, i think the fact that you have done it yourself is great, and you have no doubt learned a great deal about self control, and Engine swaps :)
I too am going down the yellow

Nahhh it had a 6cylinder before.. :)

If its not broke it will be soon