Icetiva 3 race car build

[Prafeston]

Looks great man!!

[Icedawg]

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

Hey man, you west virginians are just brutal!! I am so so sick of wrenching at the moment, 14 weekends is a long long time to build a car. And my wife is annoyed with me never doing anything around the house. How can you wish more on me at the moment? I am crushed.:tearyeyed:
Kidding aside, thanks for the positive comments to all of you!

[Icedawg]

Momma can the Festiva's come out to play?

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

Thanks Ian, and many thanks to Hiroki for all his welding fab work and help, and the chance to borrow his garage all winter.
We raced at Lac La Biche, Alberta, at the Annual Winter Festival of Speed.
And yes indeed that was a Festiva in the background. All 3 cars have a B6T swap, at least two with the VJ11/14 hybrid.
That's Hiroki's digital desert camoflauge #66

and Robin's British theme Festi #42, driven to first place this weekend by his son Chris

[shadetree]

Hey man, you west virginians are just brutal!! I am so so sick of wrenching at the moment, 14 weekends is a long long time to build a car. And my wife is annoyed with me never doing anything around the house. How can you wish more on me at the moment? I am crushed.:tearyeyed:
Kidding aside, thanks for the positive comments to all of you!

haha. Building Is the beginning ! You know that .
Keeps the woman in good health . I'll show up and wrench you can fix the sink !!!! Anytime !!!

[kumalaba]

what a great car! also those finishes were awesome + congrats on the one with the win.

[Icedawg]

A new name for a new car!

Well the thread is titled Icetiva 3, being the third Festi chassis I have taken ice racing. But I have to say calling it Icetiva 3 sounds like I am naming a boat.
So, all puns intended, I have decided it is
Thricetiva

what do you think? Now I'll just have to remember how to change my sig.

[Prafeston]

I dig it. Plus it still has "ice" in the name!

[SiliconSoul]

Lol - Nice!

If you let me know dimensions, I might just be nice enough to make you a vinyl sticker with that name for your ride....

[Advancedynamix]

Are you racing Thricestiva again this season?

[Icedawg]

^ Hey man, sorry I missed your question. Yes indeed, the season started Jan 18, and I ran the car in rubber class, with two seconds and a third place finish. I could pace the leader, but not catch or pass him.

My intention was to run studded class, but I did not have the tires built yet. For the second weekend I did, 6 bolted tires, and ran studded class. Not much luck though, the steering seemed to fail on day 1, but it later turned out it was the driver's axle, so I went back to the shop and replaced it. Sunday I came back out ready to go, and had low power and blew out 1.5 litres of oil from the head into the catch can. So I stopped, ran the plow truck, then took it home.

I spent this past weekend diagnosing and testing. Found water in one spark plug well, which prevented firing, and explained low power. Good compression 185 to 195 across the 4 cyls, better than 10-20 % leakdown, and all the leak seemed to be into the exhaust manifold. Spark plugs OK, except the one not firing was wet. Good PCV, timing belt on right, no oil in intercooler intake line, no smoking gun. And a test drive showed it had the power back and did not duplicate the blow by.

I don't understand how a failed spark in one cylinder could cause the blow by, though we have a few weird, implausible theories, but at this point, it is back out to race next weekend with no more work on the car. Hard racing will be the final test.

[Advancedynamix]

Yeah, a fouled plug can cause the oil to dilute with gas and cause blow by like symptoms. What are your plugs gapped to? The b6t likes a tight plug gap.

[Icedawg]

The plugs were a little wide since the Ir plugs were old , between 40 and 50 thou. Stock called for 1 mm, but some threads suggest narrowing to 0.85 mm or so. I reset them to 35 thou, or 0.87 mm.

[Advancedynamix]

I ran .025" in my B6t, and it loved it. The water/meth requires a tighter gap too though. 1mm always seemed so fat to me, especially for a boosted engine.

[festyfreak39]

What kind of spark plugs do you guys use? Jed, i was having similar problems my car was running like poop. I've resorted to putting pantyhose over the air filter.

[Icedawg]

Refreshed engine

The blow by was never resolved, so in the off season I pulled the engine and decided to pay a shop for a professional rebuild. That is the first ever pro rebuild I have put in an ice racer. All the cheap solutions have not worked overly well, and cost me a lot of race time.
On taking the engine apart, the cylinder walls looked good, they measured very close to spec, the valves looked decent, so there was no smoking gun. The shop that finished cleaning and inspecting it said the rings seemed to have lost there spring. This was officially a low mileage, 1990 short nose crank block from the Japanese domestic market purchase. If it had been run in NA mode instead of with a turbo under race conditions it would not have shown any problems. But it is a turbo'd race engine.
So here's hoping this refreshed block works well!


I opted for Total Seal gapless rings, ARP head studs, Mazda head gasket, race bearings, honed cylinder, polished crank and camshafts, redecked head and block, 3 angle valve grind.

Now I have to put it all back together.