[?????]

I've been thinking about adding some 3.75" BS wheels to my 1.25" wheelspacers to get the added width that I want. My only concern is in what way does that effect steering? I know the less backspacing will cause the center of the tire to take a larger radius arc around the balljoints. Will this allow my Jeep to turn sharper or less...screw up ackerman angle or anything else? Is it a good thing or is it bad? This is for a Daily driver Jeep on 35's.

 

[hbar314]

I have 1.5" wheels spacers and 2.5" BS wheels on my toyota with 15" wide tsls. Its my daily driver and ive never had a problem. I can tell that being that wide the tires have more input to the steering wheel. So when you start to hit lots of bumps and ruts on bad/dirt roads you can feel it and it wants to wander.

 

[Apogee]

Short answer, it's going to increase your steering effort and the amount of feedback you feel through the steering wheel.

Long answer, you are directly increasing the scrub radius of your front end geometry. The scrub radius is the distance between the ball joint centerlines, where it intersects the ground, and the centerline of the tire. Any bump or cornering force as seen by the tire exerts a force back through the steering system proportional to the length of the scrub radius. The steering stops should be on your knuckle, so unless your tires hit body or something else, your steering radius should remain the same, as well as your ackerman angle.

In other words, run it and see how it does. If it yields more steering effort than you like, ad a hydro assist. If you have more feedback than you like, get a steering damper. I'm sure there's more to it but that's my $.02. Hope it helps.

 

[1972CJ5+1]

Short answer, it's going to increase your steering effort and the amount of feedback you feel through the steering wheel.

Long answer, you are directly increasing the scrub radius of your front end geometry. The scrub radius is the distance between the ball joint centerlines, where it intersects the ground, and the centerline of the tire. Any bump or cornering force as seen by the tire exerts a force back through the steering system proportional to the length of the scrub radius. The steering stops should be on your knuckle, so unless your tires hit body or something else, your steering radius should remain the same, as well as your ackerman angle.

In other words, run it and see how it does. If it yields more steering effort than you like, ad a hydro assist. If you have more feedback than you like, get a steering damper. I'm sure there's more to it but that's my $.02. Hope it helps.

While I mostly agree with you, I might add a word of caution to the last part. Increasing the scrub radius will cause significant wear on your system. It will wear not only the steering, but the balljoints also. Adding a ram to an already questionable setup is asking for trouble. I just watched my brother dump a chunk of change into his Toyota to fix this issue, longer front axle. The added leverage of the spaced wheel can worsen an existing condition, like death wobble, and make it undrivable. It will also accellerate the wear conditions that allow this to propogate. If you are considering a move to this width, it might be a good idea to look into other axles that are a similar size and do a swap.