This article kinda makes you wonder what GM may have for a future
Solstice.

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Last month we presented part one of our buildup of the World's Baddest
Magazine Project Car, the HOT ROD Solstice. Doing the modern equivalent
of the V-8 swap, we decided to stick a big engine in the four-cylinder
Pontiac Solstice to make it a hot rod in the purest sense. No common
V-8 would suffice, of course. GM's recent horsepower bonanza known as
the LS7, the 505hp monster powering the spectacular Z06 Corvette, is
now available as a crate engine, so when deciding which engine to stuff
in the little Pontiac, we eschewed more commonplace choices and went
straight for the jackpot. And to up the ante even more, we added a Hot
cam from GM Performance Parts (GMPP) and tri-Y headers to allow the
engine to blast out roughly 600 hp. The car will weigh less than 3,000
pounds when it is completed and ready to run, so it'll be fast.

Last month we ended with the car as a rolling chassis in need of
bodywork, final paint, final assembly, and, of course, final testing.
This month's installment will go into all of those finishing details,
but weÕre saving the full-on track thrash for next month. We have a
few performance bogies we're going after, and the full-court press is
on to make the car perform beyond expectations.

Now a word about that body; the stock Solstice is plenty sexy, so
visually there really weren't any major changes to the basic shape or
size. But our number-one goal was brutal speed, which meant that
anywhere we could shave weight, we would. The drivetrain swap,
rollcage, and other stuff we did to the car added about 700 pounds to
it, so we went looking for ways to take weight out in other areas. That
led to the decision to go all out and create a complete carbon-fiber
body, and while we were at it, we did custom front and rear fasciae to
give it a more aggressive appearance. The rear view turned out
especially spectacular!

Yes, a complete carbon-fiber body is beyond what most people would do,
but the real story here is in the details. The engine fits pretty well,
and most of the parts used have GM part numbers on 'em. We leaned
heavily on the expertise of GM Performance Division's engineering staff
to make it all work at a ten-tenths level, but a V-8 Solstice is truly
something a capable hot rodder could do at home.

Check out part two and start taking notes on how to build a V-8
Solstice of your own. And make sure to tune in next month when we give
you all the nitty gritty performance numbers.

GM Performance Tune-up

When the car was completely assembled, it was shipped to General
Motors' Proving Grounds to be run hard, hung up wet, and tuned up to
top capability by the GM Performance Division in preparation for HOT
ROD to thrash on it. If there was one thing we enjoyed watching, it was
the GMPD team setting up the car to handle on a road course, street
driving, and a dragstrip.

The engineers in this group are excellent drivers and ran the HOT ROD
Solstice brutally hard to get everything working properly. As far as
getting to an optimal chassis setup on a car that has no tuning in it,
John Heinricy, director, GM Performance Division, said it best. "The
best process for tuning the suspension is to set the shocks at full
soft, drive the vehicle in both slow- and high-speed situations, then
set the shocks at full stiff and drive it again. This way you'll know
if there is enough adjustment in the shocks to attain optimal handling
in all conditions. Then you can go back to the soft shock settings and
add just a little damping to make sure the springs, sway bars, ride
heights, tire pressures, etc, are 'right' to achieve a good balance.
Adjust these before working the shock adjustments to attain the final
tuning," Heinricy said.

Roll Your Own

Last month, we showed you a lot of the details around the exact GM part
numbers you'll need to know to build your own HOT ROD V-8 Solstice.
This month, we'll add just a few part numbers to that list.

DRIVETRAIN AND SUSPENSION     PN
ENGINE
 LS7 V-8 small-block     17802397
ENGINE COMPONANTS
 LS7 GM Performance Parts Hot Cam     TBA
 LS7 dry-sump componants
    oil tank     12603281
    hose, engine to tank     15210122
    bolt, hold-down for hose     1151578
    hose, engine to tank     15210117
BRAKES
 Solstice GXP master cylinder     10345965

http://hotrod.com/projectbuild/hdrp_0606_pontiac_solstice_v8_final_assembly/inde
x.html
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Sure be nice to see Ford take the Miata chassis, put a retro Cobra skin
on it and put the upcoming Hurricane V8 under the hood, wouldn't it?

Patrick