airunner

I was looking at Lefty's Daystar lift and on his explanation he mentioned to get wheels with less offset!
To quote "Riding characteristics changed very little, with the exception of additional "tippiness" encountered
during cornering (Lefty's note: Get wheels with less offset !). "

I know about tire sizes and what they means but got no idea about offset. Can anybody explain please.

Thanks

TechWrench

Offset refers to the difference between the vertical center line of a wheel when viewed from the end, and the mating point of the wheel and the disk/drum. check the following site for a more indepth explanation. <http://www.icarumba.com/cobrands/con...dia_wheels.asp

I think what Lefty is recommending are wheels that extend further out from the axle, which would in effect widen the distance between the tires and in theory lessen the 'tippiness'.

But be advised, changing the wheel offset may have an adverse
effect on bearing life.

airunner

Thanks for the info TechWrench.

Having the wheels a little bit extended outside looks cool but I think will throw more dirt to the side of the truck.

Lefty

Airunner,

Techwrench nailed it. Less wheel offset will cause the wheels to be farther out from the center of the vehicle. While he brings up a good issue regarding bearing wear, and you point out that it may sling more mud along the sides of the vehicle, there are some other considerations that you may want to consider.

In my instance, I lifted my vehicle 2". That, in turn, raised my center of gravity and contributed to the "tippiness" I described. Doing a bit of research, I found that as a rule of thumb, when lifting a vehicle, you should also increase the treadwidth the same amount as the lift to keep the same handling characteristics. In my particular instance, this also ended up being a 2" increase (1" on each side). This was my primary motivation for getting new wheels with less offset.

Other considerations were the close proximity of the front suspension components to the wheel. If you run your hand along the inside sidewall of your front tires, your hand will hit a part of the front suspension. This component is roughly 1/4" away from the tire and will not work well with any tire wider than 265/70s. If you have any plans to run wider tires, new wheels will be in order, also.

So, yes, I am running the risk of wearing the wheel bearings on my vehicle prematurely, and a trip through the mud would probably sling more mud (isn't that the point ?), but the handling characteristics, appearance, and ability to run wider-than-stock tires on the truck outweighed the potential negatives.

Steve

airunner

Thanks for the explanation Steve.

I'll take all of these into consideration when I decided to do the lift and get rid of the X-REAS.

Andre