Hi,
My main questions will be below, for more background you can read the paragraph at the bottom but it probably isn't necessary.
Car already has this installed with a cold air intake but stock down pipe
I want to install this in addition to that I would be getting this downpipe as it is required
1. Although I would like to be, I am not very mechanically inclined and they said the install would take about 8 hours. So how much about do you think it would cost to get this installed?
2. What kind of power do you think I could expect, they said 350whp/375wtq is this realistic?
3. What kind of 0-60 / quarter mile times?
4. Would the car be reliable? If not would downtuning it to say 22 psi instead of 24 make it more reliable without sacrificing too much power?
5. Is this a good way to go about doing this and do you think the price is fair ($1659 + Shipping) before install?
Unrelated question:
I want to upgrade the head unit to something that has android auto and maybe a backup camera while I'm at it. Any suggestions?
So I got my first solstice (2007 GXP with about 75,000 miles on it) in 2015 and I loved the car, but then the fuel pump failed in Florida and stranded me there, got it fixed and a while later I noticed my coolant light was coming on, and I kept having to add more coolant. Water pump was probably failing which is an $800 repair, and I didn't really want to put another $800 into the car since I had just put $1500 into it for new tires and rims as well as the fuel pump. All of these decisions were a mistake, but as they say... retrospect is 20/20. So since I live in North Carolina and at least once a year would make a trip to CT or FL I needed a reliable car and due to the issues I had with the solstice I ended up selling it for a brand new (at the time) 2017 Subaru WRX. It probably took me 3 days to regret selling the Solstice, but I figured with a new car you have to own it for awhile or you take a huge hit financially so I ended up keeping it for about a year and a half. In this time things changed, I made more money in my job and I got married, my wife had a reliable toyota corolla so my car being reliable wasn't as big of a deal. I should also mention my commute is about 1.5 miles. So I barely even need to drive really. So I sold the WRX and bought a 2008 Corvette, I could afford it I mean the WRX was $450 a month and the corvette was $550 a month so what's a $100 for a 430hp V8? Well this logic held true for awhile, and I really like my corvette but I find myself still missing the solstice, this combined with the fact that spending $550 a month on a car I drive 1.5 miles to and from work and thats about it doesn't make much sense. And there are other things I would rather spend that money on. So I decided to sell the corvette (still for sale, PM me if interested) and just get a $1900 2000 toyota celica with 187,000 miles on it because really, thats all I need. Well I found that even though the celica is all I need, I like having a nice car and there was no way I was going to give up my corvette and drive an old celica around for the next few years. I just like having a nice, sporty car too much. So I looked up solstices on cargurus and lo and behold I find the perfect one! My old solstice was yellow, but I always waned a red one. This one is Red, automatic (I thought I wanted a manual, but the WRX was a manual and I really didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would) 2008 GXP about 34,000 miles on it and it has the RPM Motorsports Stage 2 tune on it so estimated (he hasn't dyno'd it) 285whp. And it cost's less than half of what my corvette does. Great! So here I am, going to purchase this car soon and once I sell my corvette I want to put the Stage 3 on it, because according to RPM Motorsports that will bring it up to 350whp/380wtq which is approximately 404hp/420tq and for comparison the corvette is 430hp/424tq (however I have not had it dyno'd to see the what the whp is, I want to do that before I sell it). So the Solstice wouldn't be far off and considering the solstice is about 8% lighter the performance gap should be fairly small at that point. Just loosing out on the bigger tires (corvette has 285 at the rear) and better transmission for the most part. So thats essentially my goal, to make the solstice almost as fast as a 2008 C6 Corvette or at least close enough that I wont be able to tell much difference for half the price of the corvette (gives me about $2000 to work with after purchase price). Reliability is still very important to me as it will be my daily driver but I dont necessarily need to depend on it for long road trips. But I would like to know that I could do them without issues. Once I finish the tune on the solstice I will keep the celica for about another month just until I establish that the solstice is reliable enough for me to sell the celica and therefore have to rely on the solstice 100%. This also gives me a second car while the solstice is being upgraded.
p.s. DDM works is a lot closer to me (5 hrs away) vs RPM Motorsports(24hrs away) but they don't seem to offer what I am trying to do, or do they? Let me know.
Thanks!
My main questions will be below, for more background you can read the paragraph at the bottom but it probably isn't necessary.
Car already has this installed with a cold air intake but stock down pipe
I want to install this in addition to that I would be getting this downpipe as it is required
1. Although I would like to be, I am not very mechanically inclined and they said the install would take about 8 hours. So how much about do you think it would cost to get this installed?
2. What kind of power do you think I could expect, they said 350whp/375wtq is this realistic?
3. What kind of 0-60 / quarter mile times?
4. Would the car be reliable? If not would downtuning it to say 22 psi instead of 24 make it more reliable without sacrificing too much power?
5. Is this a good way to go about doing this and do you think the price is fair ($1659 + Shipping) before install?
Unrelated question:
I want to upgrade the head unit to something that has android auto and maybe a backup camera while I'm at it. Any suggestions?
So I got my first solstice (2007 GXP with about 75,000 miles on it) in 2015 and I loved the car, but then the fuel pump failed in Florida and stranded me there, got it fixed and a while later I noticed my coolant light was coming on, and I kept having to add more coolant. Water pump was probably failing which is an $800 repair, and I didn't really want to put another $800 into the car since I had just put $1500 into it for new tires and rims as well as the fuel pump. All of these decisions were a mistake, but as they say... retrospect is 20/20. So since I live in North Carolina and at least once a year would make a trip to CT or FL I needed a reliable car and due to the issues I had with the solstice I ended up selling it for a brand new (at the time) 2017 Subaru WRX. It probably took me 3 days to regret selling the Solstice, but I figured with a new car you have to own it for awhile or you take a huge hit financially so I ended up keeping it for about a year and a half. In this time things changed, I made more money in my job and I got married, my wife had a reliable toyota corolla so my car being reliable wasn't as big of a deal. I should also mention my commute is about 1.5 miles. So I barely even need to drive really. So I sold the WRX and bought a 2008 Corvette, I could afford it I mean the WRX was $450 a month and the corvette was $550 a month so what's a $100 for a 430hp V8? Well this logic held true for awhile, and I really like my corvette but I find myself still missing the solstice, this combined with the fact that spending $550 a month on a car I drive 1.5 miles to and from work and thats about it doesn't make much sense. And there are other things I would rather spend that money on. So I decided to sell the corvette (still for sale, PM me if interested) and just get a $1900 2000 toyota celica with 187,000 miles on it because really, thats all I need. Well I found that even though the celica is all I need, I like having a nice car and there was no way I was going to give up my corvette and drive an old celica around for the next few years. I just like having a nice, sporty car too much. So I looked up solstices on cargurus and lo and behold I find the perfect one! My old solstice was yellow, but I always waned a red one. This one is Red, automatic (I thought I wanted a manual, but the WRX was a manual and I really didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would) 2008 GXP about 34,000 miles on it and it has the RPM Motorsports Stage 2 tune on it so estimated (he hasn't dyno'd it) 285whp. And it cost's less than half of what my corvette does. Great! So here I am, going to purchase this car soon and once I sell my corvette I want to put the Stage 3 on it, because according to RPM Motorsports that will bring it up to 350whp/380wtq which is approximately 404hp/420tq and for comparison the corvette is 430hp/424tq (however I have not had it dyno'd to see the what the whp is, I want to do that before I sell it). So the Solstice wouldn't be far off and considering the solstice is about 8% lighter the performance gap should be fairly small at that point. Just loosing out on the bigger tires (corvette has 285 at the rear) and better transmission for the most part. So thats essentially my goal, to make the solstice almost as fast as a 2008 C6 Corvette or at least close enough that I wont be able to tell much difference for half the price of the corvette (gives me about $2000 to work with after purchase price). Reliability is still very important to me as it will be my daily driver but I dont necessarily need to depend on it for long road trips. But I would like to know that I could do them without issues. Once I finish the tune on the solstice I will keep the celica for about another month just until I establish that the solstice is reliable enough for me to sell the celica and therefore have to rely on the solstice 100%. This also gives me a second car while the solstice is being upgraded.
p.s. DDM works is a lot closer to me (5 hrs away) vs RPM Motorsports(24hrs away) but they don't seem to offer what I am trying to do, or do they? Let me know.
Thanks!