Having Stock rims widened?

[subarunewbie2005]

I read a post lastnight about using wheel adapters, someone wa talking about having a wider footprint on their sub.............so that got me to thinking. What if the stock rims could be widened, still have the same backspacing/offset but be able to fit a wider tire under the car...................Ive looked and the tires on my sons subaru look like wheelbarrow wheels. I know that the wider the surface of a tire placed in relation to the road or other surface will increase the traction of the tire.

 

but I get back to my ?.............has anyone tried to widen the stock rims? Or is this just a waste of time?

[gravelRX]

Stockton wheel $$. J

[mcbrat]

waste of time and money, when you can get a wide aftermarket 6 lug wheel and drill it, or do the 6-lug mod on your hubs....

 

you can run 225 width tires on the 14" steel pugs without any problems too...

 

and with increased width (and traction) you have a greater rolling resistance.

[MorganM]

Personally I like pizza cutter tires for these little rigs.

 

An option would be going with the 6lug conversion and running old chevy/toyota/jeep (fullsize) rims that have less back spacing and wider rims. Then you can put on a lot wider tires.

 

Note McBrat's comment on rolling resistance. Going to take more power to ovecome the increased resistance.

[archemitis]

if you have an ea81, just switching to ea82 rims will get you a wider footprint.

[mcbrat]

if you have an ea81, just switching to ea82 rims will get you a wider footprint.

 

not in the case of wagon wheels. the ea82 wagon wheels have .5" more backspacing, pushing the tires in closer.....

[Sweet82]

Why would you want to widen a 13" rim?

There is no real wide tire selection in 13" tires.

 

If you really want to a machine shop can do it, Mudrat can do it or you can do it.

I think by the time you have a machine shop do it, you could have custom rims made just about as cheap.