Brian

Like full scale planes, if you center the tube in the center of the LE of the elevator it will simply pivot in place. Rotate the elevator and the gap remains the same at the hinge. If you were to cut off the actual elevator you would have an round piece of balsa the thickness of the TE of the stab that could rotate infinitely without changing the gap between the LE of the elevator and the TE of the stab.
If you were to move the tube forward it would rotate the same but when the elevator is deflected you would have a gap between the stab and the elevator. So the way I installed it is the the ultimate in clean drag-free design so I don't think it would be the issue.
The stabs are very thin and it may be possible that since I used a 12 oz fuel tank and it was balanced without fuel I'm thinking it may just want to fall forward because of balancing issues. Then if we consider the Weight X Arm = Moments formula and look at my off-road style wheels that make it look like a 4x4 red neck pre-runner, those mudder tires are sticking out in the air causing a lot of drag but also with a lot of moments of force making the plane rotate laterally , it may be possible that they are also helping to pull the nose forward.
Someday if the opportunity arrises I'd like to stick it in the wind tunnel at the University and find out what's going on. I could put on some thin pylon racing wheels and see if that affects it, and try to take off with 1/4 tank of fuel too. Then I'd know if either one of those is the issue.

Tim