We all want that little edge over the other driver so I called our friends over at Nitrous Express for help. I told them that we have one of GM’s new roadsters the Pontiac Solstice. Our 2006 Solstice is powered by a 2.4L naturally aspirated 2nd generation Ecotec motor. This motor from the factory produces 177Hp or about 150Hp at the rear wheels. Because Nitrous Express is a leader in producing safe, reliable, and affordable nitrous kits, this is why we called them first. After talking with them about the power plant in the car they recommended there Mainline EFI Nitrous System and there Digital TPS (Throttle Position Switch). We also asked for a smaller 5lb nitrous bottle over there standard 10lb bottle due to space constraints.

Because Nitrous Express had never sent a kit out for a Pontiac Solstice they were just as curious to see what the car was capable of. We began this project by mocking up the kit and finding the best way to mount the solenoids, bottle, feed lines, and TPS. We decided to mount the 5lb bottle in the trunk, installation was very straight forward. 4 bolts in the floor panel and we ran the nitrous feed line parallel to the fuel line up to the motor. Next, because this is a wet kit which means upon activation is sprays a mixture of fuel and nitrous we had to figure out where to mount the two solenoids. A solenoid is basically an electronic valve, when an electric current is applied it opens and when the current is shut off it closes. We chose to neatly tuck our solenoids under the front board near the firewall. We then had to plum all of the steel-braided lines. The feed line from the nitrous bottle went to one solenoid and we pulled fuel off of the test port on the fuel rail for the other. At this point we mounted Nitrous Express’s patented Shark Nozzle in our Fugita CAI (Cold Air Intake) system and hooked the feed lines to the nozzle. Now we were ready to start the tedious task of wiring this system, if you are not somewhat familiar with electrical systems then I would recommend letting a professional do this. After all you are mixing fuel and electricity and that, if not done correctly, can be a dangerous combination.

            Nitrous Express provided us with one of there most advanced activation switches to date. We first had to find the throttle position sensor line that runs from the throttle body to the cars ECM (Engine Control Module). After we found the TPS line it was pretty smooth from there. We then had to mount an arming switch on the dash and we opted for a purge line so we had to mount a momentary push button on the dash for that. Purge lines are valuable to have in a nitrous set up because they allow you to bring liquid nitrous to the solenoid just before use, you want to have the super cold liquid nitrous sitting at the solenoid and not just the expanded gas for best results. Now that we were finished with the install it was time for testing. We took the bottle down to the race shop and had them fill it. The cost to fill a bottle can vary from state to state, here in Arizona it cost us a mere $22 for 5lbs of nitrous. One piece of advice to those first timers, freeze your bottle before taking it down the shop to be filled. The nitrous gas flows into a cold bottle much easier than a warm bottle. We then hooked the bottle up in the trunk and it was off to the track! 

            We wanted to run a few base line passes with the car on just the motor. We ran 3 ¼ mile runs with a best ET (Elapsed Time) of 15.1 seconds, now for the nitrous. You are able to dial in your power which is measured in added horsepower by swapping jets in the Shark Nozzle, we began with the lowest power setting of 35Hp. We lined the car up, armed the system, purged the nitrous until we saw liquid nitrous, and waited for the tree to come down… the tree came down, my heart was pounding and the lights turned green and my foot went to the floor….Oh did the system work! It felt like there was a huge kick in the pants, you could definitely tell the system was working! The ET on that first run was 14.9sec, we were able to take 2/10’s of a second off our ¼ mile time on the first pass on nitrous!

            In coming weeks we dialed the system in and played with different settings. In the end we found that the stock fuel system in the Solstice would only supply fuel up to 75Hp jets and we had a best ET of 14.3. We did do some testing with a 100Hp setting but we found that the fuel pressure dropped below 43psi in the rail which caused the car to lean out (That’s bad!). So for now we are sticking with the 75jets. As with any power adder your clutch will prove to be the weakest link so be prepared to change that soon after installing your kit. We went with a Spec Stage 3+ and love it!

Remember nitrous is not a full time power solution, it’s meant for short burst’s of power and is “never” to be used on the street!

Please race on the track and never on the street!!!