Does the lower or higher in wheel offset affect handling characteristics?

 

Yes, spacing the wheel in/out will change scrub radius, which will have many noticeable effects on handling and performance, depending on application. On a mac-strut car, negative scrub will help with handling (because adding negative static camber on a mac-strut car will increase SAI). More scrub = more steering effort as well, which you'll also get from adding positive caster, something else mac-strut cars like a lot of.

 

sounds too complicated to explain for a newbie, sorry you lost me wit the 'scrub radius.' I got P45R (18X9.5) wheels, in order to clear the brembos I had to put 8mm spacers. This made the wheel stick out a lot more. My offset is 30 and I can tell the handling got 2 times better. My stance is wider, so the higher the offset the better the handling. Of course after I put coilovers on that help tons, but after the alignment was adjusted from -1.5 to -2.0 camber you feel the road more and is more twitchy when going straight on the road.

 

Forgive my noobness, what's scrub radius, mac-strut car, & SAI?

 

A macpherson strut car is a suspension type with only a lower control arm and a strut instead of a shock. The wheel is mounted on a spindle that rotates about an axis created by the lower ball joint in the lower control arm, and the top of the strut where it mounts to the strut tower. The strut bolts to a ball joint at the strut tower so it can rotate freely, and is firmly bolted to the spindle.

Draw a line down the axis of rotation of the front wheel, then find the vertical plane that is exactly down the middle of the tire. The distance between the points where those two touch the ground is the scrub radius. The more scrub you have, the harder the car is to turn because the tire is not rotating around the same axis as the spindle so it 'scrubs' the ground.

Confusing, I know. Go look it up in a book with pictures. Not sure what SAI means (edit, check next post).

 

http://www.familycar.com/Alignment.htm

 

Rather than me spelling it all out, you'd probably learn a lot more by googling the terms. Wikipedia is an OK place to start, but sometimes the articles get filled with some crap b.s. that isn't immediately edited out.

Mac-strut = macpherson strut, what your car has up front for suspension
SAI = steering angle inclination, sometimes referred to as Kingpin inclination among the oldies.

 

more offset will make it harder for you to torn the wheel actualy, but it only realy matters if you dont have powersteering on your car.

 

A low offset wheel will provide better handling because of the wider stance. It will effect scrub radius, and give you heavier steering feel, but you can offset that with more caster. But wider to an extent is better.