Wheels with offset ruined handling

[Klappars]

I recently bought some new wheels/tyres for my Talion. They are on road and have quite a lot of offset (about 1 inch?). They ruined the handling of my car, making it understeer all the time and the servo struggled to turn full lock. I am wondering if it is because of the offset on the wheels.

I have another set of on road wheels and tyres which are zero offset just like the stock wheels which work well other than that they are slightly too small diameter so the inner part of the wheel cuts in to the suspension arms and turnbuckle ends.

Since the kraton and outcast have wheels which are slightly offset, I want to know if installing kraton steering blocks and axles will make my Talion drive properly on wheels which have offset.

I have seen others run proline badlands 3.8 on the Talion and other similar wheels which have 1/2” offset. Do these wheels affect the handling too or is it not noticeable off road?

 

[2fast4u]

If your wheels have more negative offset (deeper dish on the outside) you create a wider track which is effectively increasing the long end of the lever, making the wheel harder to turn (more load on the servo) these cars have quite a bit of positive caster also and with the increase of distance between the outer face of the wheel and the steering axis created by the wheel with more negative offset you increase the effect of that positive caster which will increase the cars resistance to turning. Try shimming your front upper arms all the way forward to reduce the positive caster and see if it helps. I would also check the camber angle. Any more than about 3 degrees negative could be causing a loss of front end traction. Hope this makes sense to you. Front end alignment with all of the different angles and their effects is hard to explain without a bunch of illustration.

 

[Klappars]

If your wheels have more negative offset (deeper dish on the outside) you create a wider track which is effectively increasing the long end of the lever, making the wheel harder to turn (more load on the servo) these cars have quite a bit of positive caster also and with the increase of distance between the outer face of the wheel and the steering axis created by the wheel with more negative offset you increase the effect of that positive caster which will increase the cars resistance to turning. Try shimming your front upper arms all the way forward to reduce the positive caster and see if it helps. I would also check the camber angle. Any more than about 3 degrees negative could be causing a loss of front end traction. Hope this makes sense to you. Front end alignment with all of the different angles and their effects is hard to explain without a bunch of illustration.

I found out that a lot of the reason for the poor handling was that I was running different wheels/tyres on the front compared to the back. They were different dimensions too!

I now realise this was stupid and have since bought another pair of wheels/tyres so that they are the same front/back. This mostly fixed the handling except the occasionally slow response of the servo due to the extra leverage because of the offset wheels.

The wheels/tyres I bought though are absolute crap and within 3 battery packs worth of runtime are all completely destroyed. They have all ripped.

 

[olds97_lss]

SRC makes some pretty good belted street tires. Even their "offroad" tires give a lot of traction on pavement and seem to wear really well as long as you have them cambered so they are flat and not running on the inside/outside edge. Wouldn't suggest using them for jumping much though as they have pretty hard sidewalls and tend to crack the rims.

 

[2fast4u]

I as well have a set of SRC road crushers for street use. They have been good to me. As olds97_lss stated, your camber settings front and rear need to be proper. I would still try less caster and see if it relieves some stress on your servo. It will help quicken steering regardless. The way those tires are worn is either too much negative camber, too much toe out or both.