Hi all,
My name is Ben Beames and I'm new to the world of Formula 500.
I wanted to see if anyone here has any insight into what went wrong with my car, so I'll know what all needs to be fixed as like I said, I'm a newbie to this kind of car..
I bought an old KBS Mk V (Chico Breschini's old car) earlier this year that had been hit from behind. The previous owner had replaced or straightened everything before selling it, but I did the final assembly on the rear suspension and aligned it. Before this last weekend, I'd just driven the car around the block at my house to make sure everything was working. Everything seemed to be good, and I took the car to a local autocross meet to give it a better shakedown. Though I'm not sure, I think something went wrong part way through the first lap. The car started off fine but seemed to loose its oomph half way down the back straight (about half way through the course). It finished fine though and I lined up for my second run. Upon starting off though, I floored the car and it refused to get above ten miles an hour. I quickly pulled off and looked for something wrong. Being new to this kind of car I thought maybe the belt was bad so I swapped it out (though it looked fine on closer inspection), but when I was finishing the instillation of the new belt, I noticed the brand new arms on the rear suspension where both bent WAY out of shape, and both in the same direction. Pictures are attached.
They were straight when I started the day. Has anyone ever seen anything like that before? Is there something I did wrong in the suspension alignment? I wondered if the axle (which is the same one it was wrecked with) could be binding inside the casing and caused the axle-casing to torque the arms as this would also explain the car's lack of go. But I really have no idea. I'm just guessing at this point, but I don't want to replace the suspension arms just to have the new ones break.
Thanks for any help,
Ben Beames