Yes, offset wheels increase steering effort. Instead of the tire pivoting on it's center, it's pivoting off center. One side of the new center will be longer than the other and the tire will drag a bit more. That's when parked. When driving and taking a turn, you may experience pushing/pulling as the steering now wants to go in the direction of the turn instead of returning to center. You can increase your caster to diminish this. But, increasing caster increases steering effort when you steer off center.

Wider tires also increase steering effort.

It's amazing how a nice, cleaned up, regreased, plus maybe all new ball joints and stuff, can loosen up your steering. It can be really dramatic how much easier the steering is when you fix up your rack and pinion.

Low tire pressure can also increase steering effort.

The smaller aftermarket steering wheels also make steering harder.

If your alignment is causing you to pull to one side, then you'll constantly be fighting that pull.

My car's set up needed me to increase caster. My offset wheels made my steering a bit squirrelly when I was driving straight. It wasn't physically tiring, but it was mentally exhausting to constantly monitor and correct my steering when driving straight down the highway. I replaced and lubed everything in my rack and pinion and increased my caster and it seems that I fixed most of my pulling/pushing problem.


:veryhappy

 

Does changing the wheel offset have an effect on steering effort?

Yes it does. Ideally, when steered, the wheel should rotate at one center point on the ground. This is disturbed when the wheel offset gets changed as it creates scrubbing radius which further causes increased steering effort.

 

Be careful to keep most of the load on the inside bgr.
If you move it outwards it'll eat up the outside inside and outer races.

 

Agree. For example, negative camber will help decrease understeering but it will put a lot of load on the small outer bearings and they fail quickly.

 

Its all about that kingpin angle.

Imagine a line that connects the rotating joints of the upper and lower ball joints. This is the 'kingpin' axis.

If you view this line directly from the side of the car, the angle it makes with the vertical is the 'caster' of the car. The caster is typically the largest contributor to your steering wanting to self-center. We can talk more about caster later if you like.

If you, however, view the kingpin axis from the front of the car, the angle it makes with the vertical is typically called the kingpin angle, however some call it the steering axis angle. If you draw a line vertically through the center of the tire to the ground, and continue the kingpin axis down to the ground - the distance between these two contact points is called the 'scrub radius'

Any scrub radius a distance from zero is going to make steering effort go up. Either it will become a chore to steer the car away from straight (positive) or it will become difficult to keep the car in a straight line (negative). Cars are typically set up with a small amount of positive scrub radius.

Ok. I have read numerous books about the theory of all of these things, so I could go on for a very long time! I won't, but I am stoked to try and answer any and all questions I can about the subject!