The "Full Story"
Sunday morning - First shake down run.
Great day, great weather. Gene Barbee and his crew, Steve and George, come to El Mirage to help push off. The car is prepped and ready to go. As we push to the start line staging, the right rear tire starts rubbing the inner fender well. We push back to the pit and see the rear axle has shifted to the left letting right tire rub. I assume it is because I set panard rod while car is on jack stands, so we readjust rear panard rod. Off we go to the start line again. Now the left tire is rubbing the inner fender well. What the f#%k, over. We now realize the rear panard mount is flexing while the car is being pushed while turning. The rear axle centers itself going straight. We all decide it will be OK to make a shake down pass as long as it goes straight! I was limited to speed on that first pass any way.
My "engineering" and fabrication philosophy. Keep is as simple as possible, without compromising it's needed purpose. This philosophy doesn't mean the "simplest" way is the "easiest" way. Case in point, I couldn't use Dzus fasteners to hold the fibre glass body on because of the thickness of the two mating materials, AND, I don't believe in Dzus fasteners LOCATING body panels. So what I did on the hood and tonnoue cover is pin the front surface to hold in place and locate, and install floating 10-32 nut plates in the lower flange and use counter sunk 10-32 allens to secure body work.
Back to the run - I left the push truck pretty quickly. Took it to 6800 in first, and had a little difficulty getting into second, and then into third. Wait a second... Houston, we have a problem! The rear of the car is acting like it's on ice. It wasn't losing traction, it's just skating right, then left then right. Chute out!
Back to the pits to diagnose problem. Back to my engineering and fabrication philosophy? Well sometimes we don't follow our philosophy and get a little too cute. Because I don't have a tube bender, and because the rear panard rod needed a bend in it, I decided to fabricate one in three pieces and bolt it together. WRONG. Panard rods are not supposed to hinge in the middle!!
Keep It Simple Stupid!