Rumors???

[Grunge]

Something I heard, but is this true??

The Solstice will have the rear suspension of the Aztek, the front suspension of the Grand Am, the Brakes of the Caddy CTS, the tranny out of the Firebird/Camaro, and the supercharged version of the Lotus designed engine from the Cavalier and Sunfire, plus there's room for a V8!!!

[Stephen M]

Those rumors are in line with some things I've heard, specifically that GM was gonna dip heavily into the parts bin with the solstice to cut costs and speed development time.

The likely tranny candidate is the T56 6-speed, as seen in the F-bodies, as you mentioned.

I heard the rear suspension was independent and aluminum; no idea if the Aztek unit fits the bill.

Haven't heard word on the front suspension, but I would think that might be one of the places where a design from scratch would pay the most dividends. You'd want to avoid the parts bin here and build a suspension for the particular steering / handling / balance you're looking for. Front suspension design has a huge impact on the overall feel of a sports car, and GM doesn't have another front engine, RWD, sub-3000 pound sporty car to pull one from. That having been said, maybe they'll go the pseudo-custom route; steering rack from here, lower control arms from there, struts from over there, etc.

Room for the LS1 would be nice, but it would be a squeeze. I'm personally hoping the vortec 4200 inline 6 can fit, but I think the engine bay won't be long enough.

-Stephen M

[speedworxs]

in the prototype they were using a steering rack off of a WRX. in case you didn't know GM owns 20% of Fiji Heavy Industries which in turn owns Subaru

[dman]

>plus there's room for a V8!!!

Where? Certainly not under the hood!

[psychosquirrel]

"The Solstice will have the rear suspension of the Aztek, the front suspension of the Grand Am, the Brakes of the Caddy CTS..."

Maybe i really dunno until you put the parts side by side. But there are some problems with this statement, specifically the cars mentioned, the Aztek is NOT rwd, so why use that rear suspension setup? The Grand Am is a lame duck, there will be no more development of the grand am, as we speak GM is replacing this car with the G6, i dunno if the G6 has similar front susp pieces or even if they would fit. The caddy brakes could be too expensive for this car, but if you go by wheel size, the solstice has 18's, what does the caddy use? In other words are the caddy brakes too big or too small or just right?

"the tranny out of the Firebird/Camaro"

I wish, the Solstice as it stands now will get an Aisin 5 speed. I sincerely hope for a 6-speed manual like the S-2000. The t-56 is great but apparently won't fit in the solstice as discussed in posts a long long time ago, it also has crappy upshifts 1st to 4th forced, which I hate with a passion!

"and the supercharged version of the Lotus designed engine from the Cavalier and Sunfire, plus there's room for a V8!!!"

No, and no and no. The Cavalier as we know it is dead, it used a 2.4L twin cam then a 2.2L ecotec. The Cobalt is chevy's new small car replacing the Cavvy. The Solstice WILL use an ecotec motor of the same family but it will have VVT heads bringing it up to 170 hp vs. the cavvy's 140 iirc. This engine is NOT produced by Lotus, in fact if you look closely at a lotus elise bound for the states soon, they are using toyota engines from the celica/matrix. Lastly, there is NO room for a V-8 in the Solstice, sorry to break this to you, but the car just doesn't need nor can it accept a modern v-8. Just look at any last gen Camaro engine bay, the v-8's could barely fit in those cars! Dream on with regards to the Solstice + a v-8! I believe that most of this v-8 obession is driven by red-neck americans mad at GM for dumping the Camaro and firebird but they are too cheep to buy a much better car, the corvette. Most of these people finish sentences with "yeehaw", "soooo-eeee" and/or sing the dukes of hazard theme song with their cousin/wife Daisy-Sue.

That being said, I do hope for a more powerful solstice soon after it's launch. GM could use the 205 hp engine from the ion redline/Cobalt SS (highly likely). OR, they could introduce a new 200-250 hp TC or SC engine of the ecotec family for the Solstice GXP? Pontiac seems to be slowly developing the GXP cars, the bonny is out, the Grand Prix is next, i am guessing that the G6 and Solstice won't be far behind.

[André]

quote: plus there's room for a V8!!!

I'd be happy if there was enough room for a suitcase or two...

[Chip]

Originally Posted by psychosquirrel
[B

"the tranny out of the Firebird/Camaro"[/B]

I wish, the Solstice as it stands now will get an Aisin 5 speed. I sincerely hope for a 6-speed manual like the S-2000. The t-56 is great but apparently won't fit in the solstice as discussed in posts a long long time ago, it also has crappy upshifts 1st to 4th forced, which I hate with a passion!

I hope you mean the feel of the shifter. The S2000 has way too many unresolved issues with it's tranny. It's one of the reasons I am waiting on the Solstice.

[psychosquirrel]

The s-2000 has an Aisin 6 speed iirc.

Anything with 6 speeds and nice short throws without the annoying 1st-4th forced shift would be nice for the Solstice

[GoReMaSteR]

whoever wants a v8 in the solstice is an idiot. it'll completely throw off the weight distribution, all it needs is a nice turbo/super charger on it and it'll be more than fine.

[pyrofenix]

I think at the time of the posting it was what was being talked about. The prototype used a bunch of parts from a bunch of different things.