Solstice in Manhattan, KS

[Guest ToxicGumbo]

Hello, folks.

 

My name's Jeff and I have a 2008 Pontiac Solstice that's traveled with me from Baton Rouge, LA to Manhattan, KS.  I absolutely love this car and we've covered a lot of obscure roads and cities with a camera in tow.  I've also had a lot of fun being a part of the Solstice and Pontiac communities and this car really motivated me to get into tooling around in all aspects of the automotive world--everything from engine work, to fabrication, to friendships, computer programming, electronics, diagnostics, and repair.

 

 

 

-Jeff

[havoc1482]

Welcome to FP! Love the car! I love the Solstice. I love all post 2005 Pontiacs. I can't decide what I want to get as my next car. Its always shifts between the G8, GTO, G6, and Solstice haha 

[Ringo64]

Looks great!!

[GPSeries111]

Welcome to FP. Excellent choice that you made in driving a Pontiac Solstice. 

[JUSTA6]

Welcome to FP.

[Ghost]

welcome! any mods?

[Guest ToxicGumbo]

Thanks, all.  

 

I didn't realize there were any comments since email notices aren't the default.  Much appreciated for the warm welcome.

 

This is the naturally aspirating 2.4L Solstice, so any performance gains from adders are limited without an internals rebuild and re-tune.  I bought this before going car crazy and fully blame the condition on the Solstice.  If had the chance to do it all over again, I'd have picked up the turboed 2.0L LNF and probably slapped on a bigger turbo.  There are various tuning options one can buy to adopt any additions, though it gets expensive fast and it's unfortunate that there isn't more of a grassroots effort towards an open source GM tuning application.  So I mostly left the engine alone and started toying with an open source/hardware ECU on my Tacoma.

 

The only change to the engine I made was to add a DDM Works high-flow fuel rail in anticipation of a modest turbo addition, but that never materialized.

 

The exhaust was replaced with a Solo Performance Mach with resonator and I'm quite happy with that.  I had their shorty header on there too, but the weld split up the middle and seems to have happened to many others.  I also had their ho-flow catalytic convertor which started to burn up because it cause a lean condition which they blamed on poor fitment.  I re-did the sealing numerous times thinking I was at fault and in the end, it was because GM's ECU firmware was compensating for too much exhaust flow.  I'm quite sure they fully knew this.  I believe the only other change I made to the engine was to add an ever-cliche cold air intake (GM Performance).  

 

I picked up a GXP front bumper and added an Ebay lip spoiler in the back.  The front bumper, side skirts, front chin, fenders, and rear valance are Norm's Fiberglass.  The splash guards are from GM.  There's a second horn added for dual-pitch like any normal car would have. The fog lights have been swapped for the GXP lights.  The punched tunnel brace was replaced with a DDM Works solid steel brace, there's a rear axle brace also from DDM Works.  The A-piller cover on the driver's side has been replaced by a DDM Works two-pod piller cover which contains two Aeroforce Interceptor CAN gauges and a shift light was wired to the bottom of the rearview mirror.  More I'm sure, but all of this led to a lot of accessory and tool purchases as well.

 

 

Quite a bit has required repair: a power steering high-pressure hose, the driver's-side door handle, the interior driver-side door panel, the convertible top flaps behind the head, reprogramming the BCM and TPS on occasion, air bag problems, HVAC glitch, replaced the water pump, resealed the passenger footwell, continuously resealing the ragtop back window,....can't recall the rest off the top of my head.  Despite all that, the engine hasn't had any major catastrophes and most repairs I did on my own, including a few that were my own fault (kicking up a brick against the AC condenser, for instance).

 

At some point I'd like to get about 8psi boost for a little bit more power, so that might eventually happen.  I can't justify $4k on an aftermarket setup given that they're heavily marked up for what one gets.

 

It's been a great car overall and really improved my well-being in countless ways.  Hard to quantify that in a few sentences.

 

 

-Jeff