Pontiac Solstice

I can see a Solstice GXP being my midlife crisis car when I'm at midlife. I think they are DEAD SEXY (said in Fat Bastard voice...). Rode in one, never driven one.

we bought a gxp coupe new and really like it....and yes the coupe is extremely rare. They made 1152 total and 781 of those were GXPs. GM still makes performance parts for it. We've had zero problems, but it only has around 7k miles.

Cotton wrote: we bought a gxp coupe new and really like it....and yes the coupe is extremely rare. They made 1152 total and 781 of those were GXPs. GM still makes performance parts for it. We've had zero problems, but it only has around 7k miles.

Post is worthless with pix. Or video

I'll try and post up a picture tomorrow. We took it to GA last weekend to pick up my new to me 89 Surburban, so I snagged a few pictures of them together.

Cotton wrote: I'll try and post up a picture tomorrow. We took it to GA last weekend to pick up my new to me 89 Surburban, so I snagged a few pictures of them together.

Makes sense. Drive your uber rare car to pick up a 23 yr old Suburban

nderwater wrote: 2JZ: (sorry, couldn't help myself)

You're doing it wrong

With 50 shot of NAS

thatsnowinnebago wrote:

Cotton wrote: I'll try and post up a picture tomorrow. We took it to GA last weekend to pick up my new to me 89 Surburban, so I snagged a few pictures of them together.

Makes sense. Drive your uber rare car to pick up a 23 yr old Suburban

yeah I know...my wife thinks I'm crazy and she's right lol.

I think they are pretty good cars. The turbo models can be upgraded to 315hp through GM and still retain a warranty. Not sure if any are under warranty anymore, but at least you know that 315hp is plenty safe. They have a decent suspension and can fit gobs of tire also.

They have done respectably in number autocross classes. CS, AS, BSP to name a few.

just because they have been discontinued does not mean they are out of warrenty. GM is still in business

hmm I guess I'm doing something wrong on the picture. here is the link: http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/slideshow/AlbumID=3944713023/PictureID=173401509023/a=162423274_162423274/otsc=SHR/otsi=SPIClink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

and mad_machine is right...warranty still intact. they came with a 5 year 100k miles and we upgraded to 7 year bumper to bumper.

Yep, LS motors fit, including the LS7 (which means even the old school small block will fit, probably a big block if crazy enough). You can use the CTS-V differential for more strength as well (the whole housing). Down the road I may pick one up as a fun driver, including a LS swap. Or maybe the DI V6, who knows.

Cotton wrote: I'll try and post up a picture tomorrow. We took it to GA last weekend to pick up my new to me 89 Surburban, so I snagged a few pictures of them together.

Please tell me you didn't use your Solstice to tow your new to you Suburban home...

The Solstice coupe is extremely rare. Wonder how many of them are now in storage waiting for Barrett Jackson 2047.

The Solstice/Sky to me was always like that girl you know who would have been really sexy if she just lost some weight and got her act together just a bit more.

what about a sol/sky with an atlas I6?

I really dont know enough about either to know if thats a good idea or not. But it crossed my mind.

Hi, I'm the guy with the 2JZ swapped Solstice.

failboat wrote: what about a sol/sky with an atlas I6? I really dont know enough about either to know if thats a good idea or not. But it crossed my mind.

I was going to do a Atlas LL8 swap over the winter in a wrecked Solstice, but after seeing how tall the motor was and where the oilpan would sit I decided against it. You'd have to hack up the front crossmember pretty bad and drop the steering rack quite a bit, so goodbye suspension geometry.

Sidenotes;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbZ1xdC0dKM - quick test pull after the new trans went in

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoEYNMpSGA0 - lil' promo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhTWdB3VV3Y - being a stupid ricer

Hey!!!

Did you end up sticking the Solstice trans using the 1jz bellhousing? Or did you go with something else after the first one lunched? Did it lunch because of power or something else?

Yeah, I ended up throwing another Solstice trans in. There's a list that's about a mile long as to why that first transmission was destined to faliure that can only be expressed in bullet form:

1) Had 70k of abuse on it

2) When my buddies drained the fluid out of it before we yanked it out, apparently chunks of synchros came out, but I never found out until after it was all together.

3) Forgot to put one of the dowels in, so everything wasn't kept concentric under load which created some wonderful straight-cut-gear sounds

4) Used a super-heavy cintered iron cluth disk that only had any business of being in a dogbox trans which was super hell on the synchros

5) Used the wrong fluid for the trans

6) Had just about all of the flywheel bolts back out and almost take my legs off

7) Powershifted through the higher gears quite a few times doing some rolls

All in all, I basically went well above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that transmissions timely death. How it even made it around the block, let alone stay together for a few months of constant abuse is a testament to it's strength in my eyes. Pretty positive it wasn't power that killed it, but it did see some serious boost near the end of its short lived lifetime heh.

And because you used the solstice trans... no modification of any mounts, engine or trans were necessary for the swap?

That's pretty incredible.

Correct indeed, we ended up adjusting the body side mounts a little and just welding a plate of steel over the factory mount plate locations just to beef it up, but that was probably overkill. Worked out pretty good in the end anyway.

Stick around, you're the kind of crazy we like here.

And you made me wish i had bought a Sky instead of Miata.

wlkelley3 wrote: The Sky version is also the Opel GT in Germany. Do think the Sky is better looking myself but the Solstice does have this no nonesense look about it. Also read that the Solstice is a bit lighter than the other versions. Not so much luxury do-dads installed is what they said. I was waiting for the Coupe version to come out and hit the used car market myself, I want one. Even though I have never seen one. (is that bad?) Fit my needs, has some storage space which the roadster doesn't have.

Is the Opel GT also out of production? Did they build them in America and export them?

Edit: Answered my own question; yes for both. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opel_GT

Wonder what they did with the tooling? Mothballed it somewhere?

I've autocrossed in a Solstice GXP a couple times and really liked it. The interior is screaming to be gutted though because a roll cage would be better looking than the cheap plastics they used.