I know that a few grand national people are running stock rims that have been widened an inch or two by an aftermarket company. Does anyone have any information on this? I love my GTA rims and would like to stretch them out to 16x9.5 or there abouts in the rear so I could get a bigger contact patch. I'm also trying to keep a near stock appearance.

i too would like to know, cause i wouldn't mind my 5spoke 15x7 z28 wheels to be bigger.

i looked into this about a year ago and basically came to the conclusion that unless they do some DAMN good job, its really just weakening the rim.

I've never had stock rims widened myself, but I would be inclined to disagree with your conclusion.

I asked about this about a year ago... I think a company in south eastern USA did it... kinda pricey.
try a search, maybe by my name, and "widening wheels" or something...

http://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/show...t=wider+wheels

There's a company in Winnipeg doing it too, can't remember the name though.

http://www.stocktonwheel.com/wheel_widening.htm <-- that's pretty cool. You can specify backspacing so instead of just making it wider before/after the lip you can do both. I wonder if I could work around the GTA rim some and get some extra room for bigger brakes this way...

Does anyone have any experiences with any of these companies? I think it would be way cool to run a factory looking 16x10 rim in the back. I saw that stockton does powder coating, but that doesn't work on aluminum does it?

Also, while we're on the topic who strips/paints rims? I could strip them myself pretty easily but I lack the knowledge and tools to be able to paint them again.

I'm pretty sure you can powder coat aluminum. Any metal, or otherwise that can withstand 400*F for a while is fine.

Any autobody paint shop should be able to paint your wheels.. just clear coat over polish? or painting them black or whatever?

Shipping your wheels to a place just to get them painted by a pro wheel painter is a bit of a waste of cash in my eyes, unless you want a completely show car, and have a lot of cash to burn.
Not just any ol' paint and body shop specializing in pulling dents out of customers hondas, but a resto/custom shop.....

A very good point, but if the place I am shipping the two rear rims to can also do paint work on them then all the more reason for them to do it. Also, from what I’ve experienced around here paint work is insane cost wise. In terms of painting my car I’ve been quoted from $4,500 with me doing all my own work to $7,000 at a place that won’t let me touch the car. I’m seriously considering finding a state further south that had a reputable painter and driving there to save some cash.

As for what I want to do to the rims: I want all 4 GTA rims stripped bare, have them polished/curb rash removed, and then have the center sections painted black and then have the whole thing cleared (formula style – black center with a clear coated lip). The only problem with powder coating is that I don't think it can do clear.

You can have them powdercoated clear.

that stockton place does powder coating too I think. Might be able to get a package deal, widen, lathe off scuffs etc, and powder coat.
I imagine it would be pricey, that's a fair bit of work though.

as far as paint goes, those are brutal prices. I imagine it'd be a top quality show paint job though. I'm probably going to do all the body work on my car, then bring it in to a shop to shoot primer sealer, base and clear. If I can't get that done for under $1000, i'll be buying an air compressor and doing it myself. Mine is not going to be show quality, I just don't want my panels all mismatched, dented, rusting and very ugly.

i cant be too sure about that
i believe the powder coating process magnetizes the metal so the powder coating will adhere to it, and aluminum can not be made a magnet

also
keeping any metal at a temperature as high as 400*F and holding it there for a significant amount of time temper's the material, making it weaker, this is probably more obvious in aluminum since it has a relatively low melting point (around 1220*F)

The metal is statically charged, not magnetized.

I read through the link, and it's listed for widening steel wheels. And yes, you can powdercoat aluminum. My alum. intake and valve covers are powdercoated.

EDIT-they do it in MI:

http://www.weldcraftwheels.com/

any material that is electrically conductive, and can withstand 400*F for ~30mins can be powdercoated, as it's static charge that is needed.

400*F isn't hot enough to do anything to most metals aside from lead.

i guess i was mistaken

Yeah. The original site in question (stockton wheel) e-mailed me back with a phone number to call for alloy wheels. I'm going to send the site you linked to an e-mail. I was also talking to a local roder today and he mentioned that he had someone do a set for him locally back in the day. They're still in business, but he didn't know if they would still be willing to tackle what I have in mind.

As for pricey, sure this will be pricey but the end result will be a nice set of wide rims in perfect shape with perfect paint. They might even have correct offsets to fit bigger brakes under them. Compare the cost of me doing this to the cost of most decent aftermarket rims and it should be fairly comparable. I don’t see the point in stepping up an inch or two in diameter. Besides, the majority of aftermarket rims really don’t appeal to me.

I will keep updating this thread with my findings since there seems to be a bit of interest. Keep the ideas/comments coming

edit: just checked out weldcraft's website and I'm not sure that I like the approch of welding in a ring of metal to the rim. I'm still going to send them an e-mail asking about it.

the ring in the middle is how they do it... Unless there's some other way.... I'm pretty sure that's the only way though. You can't really "see" the difference unless you had transparent tires...

but yes, please do post some price quotes on those, I really like the look of stock wheels above all else. I was going to widen 15x7 camaro wheels (mwnova's wheels for example), but I ended up getting 15x8 2nd gen snowflake wheels free so....

yeah, wouldn't that be badass if i could get them widened to a 15x10? with a 5.5" backspacing? yeah buddy! how bout narrowing? like a 15x5 or 15x4?

If you wanted to do that, you could just cut a set on an offset, swap halves and weld them back up.

someone on TGO did this exact thing (cut a section out of fronts to do rears) on GTA wheels a year or two ago. i can't remember who...

No e-mail back yet probably because I sent it on Saturday. I will be sure to post my findings when I get them (probably Monday).

I asked a bunch of questions like changing frontspacing and backspacing, just backspacing, painting/powder coating, strength of before vs after (told him that I would be running a blown 383 pushing around 800 ft lbs - major exaggeration but I figured it would get a good answer), turnaround time, cost, etc.

I'm going to try to find the local guy the roder was talking about Monday or Tuesday to see if he's still willing to do it.

That's a great idea but I want to keep the stock 16x8 wide rim up front. In a perfect world I would like to stretch the front wider too but they would rub at full lock. I could add some front spacing to them but that would look weird in my personal opinion.

JERRYWHO

http://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/show...hreadid=183269


and you can powdercoat alum no problem. I do it all the time.

I just got a reply from weldcraftwheels.com:

I sent a reply asking for a general price quote for the job. I would like to give JERRYWHO a shout but I don't have another spare set of rims I can cannibalize for the job.

More info


The price isn't that bad at all. I think I'm going to go for it. I sent them one last e-mail asking about their method - whether or not they need an extra set of wheels to cannibalize or not.

As was already mentioned it was JERRYWHO that modified a set of 1991-92 Z22 16x8 rims as described. However he has investigated doing it to the GTA rims and said it can't be done. Or I should say can't be done by cutting fronts & rears and interchanging the pieces to fab skinnier fronts and fatter rims. You may be able to have someone widen them with virgin metal.

Lon

More more info.

It looks like shipping will run me about $60 one way via UPS ground for the set of four. I plan on having all the curb rash removed and widening the rears to 16x10. So $120 for shipping, $300 for stretching the rear two out, and $25-$35 a pop for curb rash removal. That puts the total at $560 ($420 w/o shipping). Sure you can go out and buy another set of rims for that, but I love the way GTA rims look. There's also the whole stealth aspect of it not to mention the weight (or lack there of) of the GTA wheels. Most aftermarkets are heavy things unless you spend major money on them.

If people are interested still I will post up again when I get it done in a month or so.

He can widen GTA rims. Your thinking of he CANT make a GTA rim a 17inch rims.

He did take a stock set of 16 Z rims and Re HOOP em and make em 17's. the GTA rim was too small of a 16 to rehoop as a 17.

Stockton wheel in California will do aluminum wheels... I checked into this and talked to them on the phone a year or so ago. I was running the polished '00 17x9.5" WS6 rims and wanted to go 11" wide in the back for 315/35 tires. It was going to cost about $200/wheel.. well worth it IMHO for the sleeper look.


This is from my email to them in january '04....

"Call Eric @ 626-358-6413"


*here's a guy that did what I wanted to do...

http://www.ws6.com/wheels.htm