🔧 BUILD suicide solstice

v6buicks

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Oct 22, 2018
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Franklin, IN
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He said on Facebook that he was swapping all that over to a more bougie less ratchet Rivi. Is El Tortuga evolving into a sport turtle Solstice now?
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turtleman

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Sep 6, 2009
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This has been pretty interesting to do so far.
In general, this is a pretty neat car - how different it is than what i'm used to. I like how everything outside of the main frame structures are dainty little bars to hold everything up and reinforce stuff.

LE5/AR5 are out. Nothing too tricky. Dealing with the torque arm connecting the trans to the diff was a bit of a pain for a first timer.

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This is a good shot of probably my least favorite thing about dealing with this motor. The thermostat housing and everything on the back of the motor and the consequent ridiculous rad hose to go to it - that's just cruel o_O

Anyway it's for sale! 75k mi all in good order and ready for your go-cart build

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Here's that torque arm setup at the top. That has doubled up like 1/8" thick C-channel. It's beefy as f***! Connects the tail of the trans to the diff solidly.
I researched all I could about doing this swap and saw not one picture of this thing...
But yeah, I'm taking that out and putting in this diff mount setup lower in the picture. The diff bracket now just mounts to the back of the body of the car behind the "backbone" (at least it looks pretty tough where it bolts up to). Then the tail of the trans just connects to the center of the car conventionally. I guess this is what is done with engines making double and beyond the torque from stock in these swaps :whistle:
My inner nimwit engineer really wants to take care of this seeming loss of rigid support for the diff but I guess I can do that later.
 

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