[akumabito]

Just browsing the web, I come across more and more sites of people who've performed V8 conversions. Must say there are a lot of interesting cars out there!

So now I'm looking into the possibilities of buying a junkyard car and stuff a V8 in for a reasonably low-budget fast car. Problem now being that I live in Holland, Europe. And V8 engines never were popular here.

So what I wanted to know is what engines are cheap to find in the US? I have friends there who can do some salvaging for me, but I first need a guideline as to how much the engine would cost approximately.

Was thinking about either a Ford 5.0 or a Chevy 350. Those are produced in large numbers, so they should be relatively cheap to find.

Also, which would be better, a manual or automatic transmission? Just planning to use the car on the street, no real racing involved, except at the stop lights of course. So how much would a Chevy or Ford V8 be including the transmission?

And does anyone have an idea how much it would be to ship it to Europe? My friends live in the Seattle, WA, region, so that sucks, because it would need to be shipped to the east coast first.

And finally, what are the dimensions of the engine, and gearbox? The idea was to stuff it in a small a car as possible as to go for the optimum sleeper effect, but I need to know how small I can go.

Ideally it would all fit in a car similar to the one I drive now, a Fiat Panda. ((For you Americans, think of a Geo Metro, but only WAY smaller, all rectangular and with a one liter engine)) Now that would be funny, swapping the 1 liter engine for a 5 liter one!