I’m guessing that’s because you’re bringing the mounting surface of the wheel closer to center, evening out the forces on each side of the mounting face. Is that correct?

 

Yeah kinda.

You're putting a bigger lever on the hub. And that lever is lengthening towards the outboard side.

Like...imagine having a literal lever attached to your hub, pointing outboard.

Now if you pulled on that lever, it would be easier to make the hub "steer" as the lever got longer, right?




Same concept.

The lower offset is the longer lever.
The road force or bumps or puddles or...whatever is the push/pull

 

I feel bad for the sucker that bought your old Swift Springs

 

I understand what you're trying to say, but I think that's the back asswards way of thinking about it. Your steering rack feeds that force into the hub. Then whatever forces are being applied to the wheel/tire is then being applied to the hub trying to change its direction while your steering keeps it in its place. That's why I was thinking that evening out the distance of the "levers" as you called it (the distance from mounting surface of the wheel to outer and inner of the wheel) helps keep one side of the wheel from pulling harder than the other side of the wheel on the axis of the mounting surface.
Maybe I'm wrong, but that's the way it makes sense to me in my head.

 

I'll draw you a diagram
:rubbing hands together in delight:

 

Haha. No way. He seemed like a younger, more robust person, able to withstand the slight increase in ride harshness.

 

Lol oh boy, I can't wait

 

Lol. Google "scrub radius" in the meanwhile. Tons of good diagrams already exist.

 

I see Engineering Explained made a video on this. I'll watch that and let you know my consensus afterwards lol He usually explains things in a way that makes sense to me

 

Ok so basically the axis that is created by the two ball joints creates the pivot point that the wheel rotates on, and you want that pivot piont to be the center (bottom tread) of the tire . That makes more sense.

 

Well, you want it placed for what the car is designed to do.

You almost never want 0 (center).

For a sporty car, slightly positive has benefits. For a normal computer, slightly negative has benefits.

Anyway...engineers at Infinti had eyes. So I'm sure they saw how ridiculous the stock wheels looked. It means this was likely a decison based on driving dynamics rather than looks. If they could have flushed out the wheels...they would have.

 

Well... My G has over 100k on factory control arms and ball joints. If I space out the wheels for a more flush look and it wears out the joints faster, then shame on me. MANY people do this either with spacers or lower offset wheels and have no issues for a long long time, so I don't think it should hurt too much. If they wear out then I'll just get new ones and go for another 100k.

 

I didn't mention chassis component wear at all. But...yeah, you're putting more stress on some of your parts.

The big change you may see is a change in how the car drives.

How you perceive these changes is dependent on your setup and also your perception.

Speaking in terms of physics...you're just adding a larger inertial moment to your suspension movement.

Also tyre wear. You'll see some inside edge wear.

Again, I have nothing vested in how you modify your car. So I'm not trying to talk you into/out of anything.

Just stating facts only.

 

I know you didn't mention it, I just brought it up because that's my only real worry about making that change. However it changes the driving dynamics, I'm welcome to it because it's very neutral as is. Any character building would be a plus lol

I got an alignment and all the wheels were pointed in causing outside wear. Everything else was on point so if this does anything to vilify that, again I'm welcome to it.

By the way, are you an engineer or something? You seem to have a better than normal understanding of physics and the terms associated.

 

Yeah, at the start of my career, I was a design engineer for a few years. Chassis design, related components, etc.

I've since worked in automotive OEM R&D for a while in general as well.