Topic: Hello from Brazil

[agent008]

Hello there. I am a brazilian car enthusiast, and since the Solstice's introduction way back during the end of GM's Lutz era I have wished I would some day own a Solstice.

That day is near, and as I am negotiating my purchase of one of the very few Solstices for sale in my country (they have never been officially brought by GM to Brazil, we don't even have an official presence of any GM brand except Chevy), I decided to sign up at this forum in order to research for my vision for this car.

I just recently let a lovely, blue, 2.4 manual transmission 2006 Solstice slip through my fingers and will have to settle for a silver automatic 2007 GXP.

One of the first things I intended to do to the blue 2.4 if I had gotten it, was to swap a HFV6 into it. V8's are few and far between here in Brazil and very expensive. For the price of a used LS I bought a whole car, a 2005 Chevrolet Omega (a rebadged Australian Holden Commodore, also sold in the US as the Pontiac G8 and Chevy SS) with the LY7 3.6, 252hp V6 engine.

Well, the 2.4 got away and now I intend to buy this GXP and have a go at it, but knowing myself am already thinking of swapping to a manual gearbox. And also maybe change the engine to the V6. Everyone will ask why, and the answer is not rational - I love the 6 cylinder sound, I'm a sucker for normally aspirated, high-revving engines and the LY7 wih custom cams and headers is a great option for my taste. Maybe, if the NA performance of the V6 feels insufficient, I could supercharge or turbo it later, but still it would be a low-pressure setup as that is more to my taste.

As for manual transmission? Well, the usual suspects (AR5, T156, 6161) are also not readily available here. I do have a spare gearbox from an older (around 2006), local market Nissan Frontier. It's an Eaton-Fuller FSO-2405J. This transmission was also used in the older (pre-2012) brazilian S-10 and Blazer, both in diesel (same bellhousing as the Frontier) and gas V6 (with a different bellhousing) versions. It's a nice shifting, if a little bit truck-ish feeling, 5 speed transmission which seems woudl fit well the bill.

So, as I come close to fulfilling the old dream of having a Kappa, I thought I could further my research and register in a couple of Kappa-related forums to ask around about both conversions (V6 and manual).

I hope I can find the info I am looking for and also look forward to contributing back with the experience I'll gather on the course of these projects.

Thanks!

Cheers

[Critterman]

Good luck with your project and welcome to the forum

[Sol Asylum]

Welcome to the forum.

I would say drive the GXP first and then decide which way to mod it.  I believe that others have changed from an auto to manual already and the manual trans was shared with other GMs such as the S10 (Colorado/Canyon here in the states) so you might be able to find one in Brazil.  Having bought a manual I can understand why you would want that over an auto however the auto is faster (don't tell GJ I said that).

That GXP 4 cyl can be easily tuned to get over 300 HP for far less then the cost to install another engine.  So a tune could be a good place to start and then see what you think.  One of the problems with adding big power to the Kappa is getting it to the ground.
 Spinning tires is cool and all for a little while but actually going somewhere fast was the idea wasn't it?

[agent008]

Thanks for sharing your advice and welcoming to the forum.

Yes, I will drive it as-is for a while because really nevewr tried a Sols before. Maybe I like it as is.

Yes I keep reading everywhere the Auto is faster. Which one is more fun though?   

In terms of modding re. doing an engine swap, from what I read here and elsewhere it is more than established that the best / most efficient way of doing it is retuning the LNF.
However if I only thought of efficiency I'd never buy a Kappa car seeing as they have zero practicality (reduced storage space. no spare tire. etc)
This car is for fun and to cool off my head on a hard day. I really don't enjoy just spinning tyres, the goal is to make more power and put it to the ground as you say.
Also the cost factor differs here compared to the US. Any tuning parts for the LNF (cams, manifolds, headers for example) would have to be imported at a high cost (duties and taxes north of 80% over list price + shipping). So a junker LY7 gets less and less expensive, and I theoretically have all I need with it. The ECM is Bosch just like the LNF's (maybe easier to retrofit to a GXP than to a 2.4's Delphi-based system). The engine is complete and working, the car being a junker I can pull out the engine harness as a whole. I think it would come down to mating the V6 to the gearbox, checking for fit, doing custom mounts and customizing the driveshaft. Electronically, if the ECM's really are signal-compatible it would be a case of checking the wiring for incompatibilities and fixing immobiliser - VIN-lock stuff.

Would it really be such a far-fetched pipe dream? 

[Sol Asylum]

By tuning I meant a software update like Westers or Trifecta, surly they don't tax you on email attachments in Brazil.  If they do don't let the politicians in the US know, they don't need any help stealing from us taxpayers.

[agent008]

surly they don't tax you on email attachments in Brazil

Psst... let us not give our governments the idea!

I got it now. When you said tuning I thought about cams etc which would really be "stage-2" or "stage-3" mods.

For now I'll focus on closing the deal, after I have test driven it of course. I'm sure it'll be plenty fast to make me happy from the outset.

(but, if anyone does have any info on a HFV6 swap do let me know!  )

Cheers

[LatinVenom]

The software tune with well over 300 BHP and the small price is the best investment. The Solstice is drivers car and not a hot rod.

[DeepBlueGXP]

Welcome to the forum.  If you drove the 2.4, driving a GXP is a great experience.  Driving with just a tune on GXP is an awesome experience. 

[Kelu]

Welcome, I would vote for a tuned LNF, mild one. Will not sound like a NA V6 but it will be fun for sure.

Just go with a full empty exhaust with a good tune.

[Steelmesh]

Lots of V6 'talk', but no one has taken the 'walk'.  You'd be the guy everyone will come to for advice on swapping in the HFV6.


Have you considered swapping in a 1JZ/2JZ?  It's got 6 cylinders and has been done more than once.

https://engineswapdepot.com/?p=1919

http://www.speedhunters.com/2017/12/skyward-thinking-a-2jz-swapped-saturn/

There is a lot of support for LNF performance parts, maybe you can get your feet wet with that before committing to 200 hours of work building a HFV6 kappa car.

[agent008]

Thank you all for the welcoming messages and advice.
I have started the V6 journey by buying a donor Chevrolet Omega (our domestic name for the Autralian made Holden Commodore / Chevy SS / Ponty GTO/G8) with the 3.6 HFV6.

Still havenˋt bought the Solstice as 1)donor was cheaper!  and 2) still trying to find a manual, 2.4 as they are several grand less expensive.

Donor car is in reasonable state of (dis)repair, the engine runs smooth as butter, the 5L50E is also perfect, with only 35k miles it should all be pristine. Suspension, diff, and other ¨running gear¨¨are so-so as the car was stored its whole life (since 2005) near a very salty beach. I drove it for a couple days, put about 120 miles in  it and then the starter (which was already hal seized and struggling real hard) gave up the gost with a puff of smoke.

If I end up not finding a Solstice within my price range for now, worst case I end up with a junker Omega to beat around and it will be driven with gusto  as it is such a comfortable vehicle and the 3.6 is really a hero moving that 2000kg (it is armored!) barge, it certainly has some get up &go as they say.

cheers

[Steelmesh]

Thank you all for the welcoming messages and advice.
I have started the V6 journey by buying a donor Chevrolet Omega (our domestic name for the Autralian made Holden Commodore / Chevy SS / Ponty GTO/G8) with the 3.6 HFV6.

Still havenˋt bought the Solstice as 1)donor was cheaper!  and 2) still trying to find a manual, 2.4 as they are several grand less expensive.

Donor car is in reasonable state of (dis)repair, the engine runs smooth as butter, the 5L50E is also perfect, with only 35k miles it should all be pristine. Suspension, diff, and other ¨running gear¨¨are so-so as the car was stored its whole life (since 2005) near a very salty beach. I drove it for a couple days, put about 120 miles in  it and then the starter (which was already hal seized and struggling real hard) gave up the gost with a puff of smoke.

If I end up not finding a Solstice within my price range for now, worst case I end up with a junker Omega to beat around and it will be driven with gusto  as it is such a comfortable vehicle and the 3.6 is really a hero moving that 2000kg (it is armored!) barge, it certainly has some get up &go as they say.

cheers

I will find you a cheap Solstice to export if you find me a cheap armored G8 to import and we'll trade   

[agent008]

I will find you a cheap Solstice to export if you find me a cheap armored G8 to import and we'll trade   

If it were easy (as in: our governments weren't such a PITA about importing armoured vehicles, or even used vehicles), I'd do it in a hearbeat!

You'd just need to change the bumper and badging from Chevy to Pontiac 

[agent008]

UPDATE:

 I have finally accomplished my dream of having my very own Pontiac Solstice. It is an Aggressive Red '06 2.4, I've had it for 3 weeks now and am just loving it. Odo read about 7000 miles (11.300km). On the day I bought it I just filled it up and drove it 200 miles home. Talk about a nice satisfying drive!

As for the donor Omega (G8). It was the donor car that had the HFV6, and which I bought from the other side of Brazil. Believe it or not, it burned up during the transport. Literally. Carrier truck caught fire and destroyed the poor thing along with all the other cars.

This week, I bought a new donor car. Got it from an auction, whole car for less than what you pay for the engine alone from junkyards over here (it's a usual situation). It's an '09 Chevrolet Captiva with the LY7 engine.

[Critterman]

Congrats on your new ride.

[Sol Asylum]

Excellent choice of color.

I have that LY7 engine in my G6 GXP, it's only a few HP less than my Sol GXP.  So far it has been a pretty good engine.

[agent008]

Thanks for the compliments!

Hopefully I'll be able to start soon on this project.

About the LY7, yeah, love that engine, the 1st donor car (the Omega/G8 that burned), I drove it for a few (4 or 5)days in its city of origin, it was a neglected car, only about 35000km (about 22k miles) but rarely used and sat half in the sun half in the shade of a tree. It was a company car living in Fortaleza which is known as one of the worst saltiest atmospheres o the world, so the car had already some panel rust and an ant colony was living underneath it (ask me how I found out). The starter was giving up the ghost (I later found out it was almost seized, and after cranking it maybe 30 times during these few days, I finally managed to cook up the starter cable, it melted and severed, so it stopped working). But all it took for the engine to wake up was one measly turn of the starter and the thing purred away so smoothly. Even after I don't know how many months just sitting under that scalding sun and with all the salty air, that motor was just perfect. All it did was rattle abit for less than a minute when we first started it. Then oil reached the heads/tappets, and it purred as new.

Managed to move that 4500lb armoured G8 very well. What a great comfortable car. I miss it, the Captiva doesn't have the same quality about it.