TECH: HJ HOLDEN BUILD

> CASTLEMAINE ROD SHOP HAS EVERYTHING FOR YOUR HQ-WB HOLDEN – AND STUFFED MOST OF IT INTO THIS HJ

The CRS crew upgrade an old Holden with modern suspension, brakes and powertrain

IF YOU’RE the proud owner of an HQ-WB Holden but you’re not so proud of its road manners, then you might want to check out what Castlemaine Rod Shop has on the shelves that will drag the old girl kicking and screaming into the 21st century. For proof of concept and to test out product development, CRS always uses a running car, and that’s what this rather mundane-looking HJ Kingswood is.

I had a chat to Heath from CRS to find out a bit more about what went into the car. “We got this one off a young bloke in Shepparton who bought it off the original owner,” he said. “It had a big sound system and big amp, but we ripped all that out. It still had the original owner’s manual and jack in the boot. We tried to get a real original car so that people can’t argue that it’s modified or chopped up.”

The best thing about this conversion is that the whole lot is bolt-in, from the rack-and-pinion power steering up front to the coil-over nineinch out back. It even allows you to run a Turbo-hydramatic gearbox so you don’t have to go cutting up transmission tunnels to fit late-model overdrive autos. All up, it took two blokes less than two days to strip the driveline and then put all the new stuff in. Of course, it helps if you have a hoist and a fully equipped workshop, but it’s definitely achievable in the shed at home.

With double-adjustable coil-overs and disc brakes on all four corners, vastly improved steering and a blown LS1 under the bonnet, you can bet that this old girl can keep up with most modern traffic on the twisty stuff and easily blow them away on the straights, thanks to around 460hp at the wheels. Maybe not on the cheese-cutter tyres she’s wearing in the photos, but you get my drift.