Suspension ? for you engineers
 

If you change the offset on you wheels from negative or zero to positive will the wider wheel act like a lever on the A-arm and in effect, make the coil spring feel softer? ie Do wheels with more offset create more leverage on the a-arms than those with less offset?

Yes, it should just think of it like turning a stuck bolt. the further you get away (using a breaker bar or longer wrench) the easier it is to turn using less force, i.e. leverage. The same holds true for offset wheels, the farther out the wheel is, the easier it is for the mechanism to apply force to the spring or torsion bar.

Ditto to Reed23! The wheel offset does act as a lever arm because the contact patch of the tire is that much farther from the pivot point back at the A-arms. I doubt it would make a huge difference unless you had very large spacers or wheels with huge offset on them.

Well that was my thought. I really like what Lefty did with his 4th Gen. Daystar lift and wheels with more offset. I like teh idea of a little wide wheels spacing for a little better stability for a liften rig. My concern is that the A-arm is only about 12" long so wheels with 1" more offset than stock = about an 8% increase in leverage on the springs. I'm thinking it might be better to achieve the lift with a stiffer coil (OME) if I am going to install wheels with more offset.

I've actually been looking into lengthened axels/axle swap options to increase stability for when I lift my runner. If you'd like I'll email you what I find out.

Reed

Just to be clear here, offset is the difference between the hub face and the wheel centerline as looked at from vertical, and has nothing to do with wheel width. Positive offset means the hub face is more towards the outside of the wheel than center. Negative offset means the hub face is more towards the inside.

So, a positive offset would actually bring the wheel more underneath the vehicle. Negative offset would push the wheels out, and really negative is what you see on pizza cutting Civics and some Navigators.

Aside from the fact that more leverage is placed on the A-arms and rear axle you must realize that increased negative offset will also introduce excessive pressure/wear on wheel bearings too.