I've only played CS, but I've had a similar problem.
One of two things (in my case): I was told "spring centering" tends to take
over and "mask" some, if not all, of the effects, so it was suggested I
turned that option off in the LWFF software. The other was that for some
reason, some sims will not recognize the FF wheel if it's assigned a
controller ID other than 1 in Windows. For a while, I had my LWFF as
joystick 2 and had the exact same problem you are having. Switching it to
joystick 1 solved it. Just go to "game controllers" (or "*** options")
and hit the advanced tab. You'll be able to switch the controller IDs
there.
Hope this helps,
Luis