Icetiva 3 race car build

[Icedawg]

Nut bar

Cleaned up the nuts, mounted the cross member, then H welded the nuts back in place, and closed the boxes up again. Hit it with some paint after, but it's easier to see before painting.

and under the floorboard for the back end nut

Like everyone, I am really jealous of Bryant's Gomez ULTIMATE build with that brand new Festiva chassis, no rusty bolts and nuts, no holes in the floorboards, no hours wasted on fixing rust problems!

[Larry Hampton]

Down south we call them "washboard roads".

[Icedawg]

Tranny mounting

'Stand-off cubes with a lower cradle' - why?
Oh wait. Stand-off cubes do the lowering? Not taking up the space and keeping the engine in stock location? Yeah, that's probably it. Sorry. Been awake too long again.

Yeah that's it! And here is what the whole thing looks like:
Clearancing the frame rail, cutting the hole and mounting the fourth support:

and nicely painted too

G25mr transmission in place, fitting nicely in the clearance hole

It sits very close to the steering box, and only fits because it is dropped low.

On the previous build some of the web on the steering box was removed to make a bit more room for the engine to rock, and to get the engine and tranny in place when dropping it in, as shown in this pic below. I ground the web away on this car's steering box after the shot above was taken.

And those standoffs Sketchman was wondering about drop the cross member down so there is enough clearance and the engine does not have to move forwards to clear instead.

and at the back

[Icedawg]

Awesome pics and writeup IceDawg! That car is looking way too clean to be an ice-racer - it should be in a showcar somewhere!

Hey thanks man. Of course I am not taking pictures that feature the flaws in my paint job and body work! But while it will be a nice and pretty race car, it is way far from a show car.

[Icedawg]

Down south we call them "washboard roads".

Yeah I can see that, but corduroy roads are worse. They are roads made in the pacific northwest when they were logging original growth forest a hundred thirty years ago and more. They would lay logs down cross wise to the direction of travel, in the mud, to lay a road for the logging. Really kidney rattling!

[Icedawg]

Rad swap

I went with a Civic e-bay aluminum racing radiator.
We added a third bottom post support to mate with the pins on the bottom of the civic rad. The rad exit port did not clear the transmission mount, so it had to be cut off, welded shut, and re-welded onto the side of the tank.
That cost a bit, so the savings on the e-bay rad over a new Festi auto rad were consumed, but I like this thicker but more compact radiator.

[Icedawg]

Ice Race Parts

There are a few extras needed for ice racing. To mount them I bought this thread insert tool. It works very nicely!

Spoiler, top rear mount fog light, and top mount brake lights

And then the tie down straps for the rear hatch

And the Lexan front window

[Icedawg]

engine in

Thursday before weekend 12 I got the engine dropped in! Sweet.

But I could not get it finished for weekend 12, the start of the ice race season. Spent the weekend as a volunteer for the racing in registration, timing and snow plow, and now its back to getting it ready for next race weekend.

[Icedawg]

I went with a Civic e-bay aluminum racing radiator.
We added a third bottom post support to mate with the pins on the bottom of the civic rad. The rad exit port did not clear the transmission mount, so it had to be cut off, welded shut, and re-welded onto the side of the tank.
That cost a bit, so the savings on the e-bay rad over a new Festi auto rad were consumed, but I like this thicker but more compact radiator.

Sorry, I'm new to Photobucket, switched last week when Imageshack started charging fees, and I did not use the library quite right the first time with those two shots, so they got lost from the post.

[Icedawg]

the home stretch

Weekend 13 and 14 were spent rushing to get it finished for at least one ice race weekend in 2014. Here is the engine bay, with a few views of the Honda Civic racing radiator in place.


and way down at the bottom the side port on the rad clears the turbo nicely.

I went wild with the thread insert and put mount screws along the fire wall for all the B6T wiring, and vacuum system. I deleted the charcoal vapor canister and vacuum controls that went with it, so only one of those three vacuum relays is used now, the other two are shorted to each other on the vac system, and the electrical leads are not connected to those two.

the knock box mounted with a stock Festi threaded spot on the passenger wall

and the intake and vaf assembly

then the last paint job, to the hood

[Speed_bro]

thats awesome man!, hope all goes well send pics of finished product!

[jawbraeka]

Looking good.. If that bay was a woman.. I'd take it out for a seafood dinner and definitely call the next day. Man she looks sweet

Sent from the depths of hell.

[Icedawg]

DONE!!!!!!!

And so finally on weekend 14, at 4 am Saturday morning, the car is done, race belts in, foam padding on the bars, battery mounted in the passenger sidet, small problems in the lighting wiring and switches fixed, engine cleaned with Seafoam & 5w30 dino oil and marvel mystery oil until the lifter started working, oil filter and oil changed to 10W40 Royal purple synthetic, leaking rad hose tightened up, hood pins installed, and more I mercifully forget, all done, car loaded on trailer, racing van loaded with gear and back home from the garage at 5 am.


Then after an hours sleep its off to the race track for the Western Canadian Ice Race Championship, with plenty of coffee in a thermos. WOW, after all this work, and so much time its done and ready to race!

The car ran well, and worked well. It took me the weekend to get my ice race chops back, and to be willing to put the car at some risk while racing, which you have to do to be fast. I went from being gridded in last place at the start of race 1 to finishing 4th, out of about 12 cars in that race. Finished 3rd the next race, then 4th, then 3rd again. And in the feature race, the last of the season, the double points race: I won, by half a lap! So third overall on the weekend championship for rubber to ice class.
I got a dent in the rear driver's quarter panel unfortunately. But the car ran well, it boosted to a stable 10 psi when I was able to stay in the throttle long enough (it was a short, tight and slippery track)

Thanks for looking and reading!

[shadetree]

Awesome read ! Lots of work pays off . Now keep wrenching !

[fastivaca]

Well done Jed and crew!! Where was the race held? Looks like #42 is a Festiva too.