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2008 GM Offers Turbo Upgrade Kit for Solstice, Sky, HHR Review

December 2008
Filed under: GM Car News | GM Headlines
With over 260 horsepower and 260 lb.-ft of torque on tap, the factory LNF engine is a formable powerplant to have residing under your hood. GM is committed to the Sport Compact enthusiast and as such, is releasing the LNF Turbo Upgrade kit for the Pontiac Solstice, Sky Redline and HHR SS. This upgrade kit includes a new engine calibration and upgraded MAP sensors that turn those 260 ponies into 290 stampeding horses!

GMTunerSource worked with Todd Christensen at GM to help put us in touch with the lead engineer of this upgrade, Bill Duncan, at GM’s High Performance Vehicle Organization to give us an exclusive inside look at the new LNF Turbo Upgrade Kit. After many meetings with Bill, we are very excited about the new kit. GM really did their homework and has delivered a knockout upgrade for LNF owners.

On the manual transmission Solstice and Sky, you’ll be greeted with 340 lb.-ft or torque out of the 2.0L ECOtec, while in the automatic transmission models and the HHR SS you’ll have the option of laying down 325 lb.-ft or 315 lb.-ft respectively. This upgrade means serious business and opens up your LNF-powered vehicle to the best performance possible while still retaining your full factory warranty. But remember what good ole Uncle Ben said, “With great power comes great responsibility,” so all this extra power requires premium fuel to run properly. The kit is 50-state emissions-compliant so tuners nationwide can take solace in the fact that their vehicle will conform to their state’s emission standards. The install should take only about an hour at your local dealer and is not included in the price of the kit.

As if the extra power increase wasn’t enough, the GM Performance Division has also added a few surprises to the LNF Turbo Upgrade Kit. One of the most exciting features about the new Cobalt SS Turbo is its ability to perform the “no-lift shift” function, where the driver can keep his foot planted on the accelerator and shift into the next gear in order to keep boost levels up between shifts. The GM engineers saw the extra excitement added from this feature and have added it to the kit so that Solstice, Sky and HHR owners can get in on the fun also.

That’s not the best part of new kit however, as the pièce de résistance for the new LNF Turbo Upgrade Kit is what tuners of the Solstice and Sky have been waiting for since day one. GM has gone ahead and unlocked the learn feature for the LNF that keeps power at factory levels even after aftermarket modifications have been made. That means that your new cat-back exhaust, intercooler hard pipes and cold air intake will deliver the exact results you were expecting from them. The kit has also upped the rev limit of the LNF to 6500 rpm so you’ll have that extra 200 rpm to get you through the apex of that last turn or through the last few feet at your local drag strip.

GM is excited to bring this kit to the Solstice GXP, Sky Redline and HHR SS owners; Cobalt SS Turbo owners, you were not forgotten either. A kit for all LNF-powered Cobalt’s is being worked on currently and should be available by the 1st quarter of 2009 along with the rest of the 2009 LNF model vehicles. The LNF Turbo Upgrade Kit can be purchased at your local GM dealer and carries a MSRP of $650. Instructions on how to install the kit is located below. If you have any other questions feel free to leave us a comment below and we’ll answer them as quickly as we can.

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