Ford-a-tude

I think I have made up my mind. I REALLY like the stock Fanblade rims A LOT so I am going to keep them. I have heard some good things about Weldcraft and their rim widening service. Now my question to you guys is, what size should I go with? My first thought was to take the 8.5" stocker to 10". Would that be a good choice for the rears? As far as the fronts are concerned, how do you think that would handle with 10" in back and just leaving the fronts alone? I'm not looking for an all out drag car and I'll probably never take it to a track. I just want something fun for the streets. Thanks.

Norm Peterson

If you do nothing else to the car, I'd expect it to understeer a little more as you start pushing it harder. That's assuming that you stay with the same make/model tires front and rear, just in different sizes, and don't get carried away with hugely wider rear rubber.

If you think that you might ever go with wider front tires, I'd rather see you on 9" front wheels for (say) 255/45-18 and 9.5" for 275/40's.


Norm

Ford-a-tude

I checked the other night for the first time and it seems the previous owner put 275's on the rear already. Pretty surprised because they look fine with no excessive bulging of the sidewalls. That's why I was thinking to widen the rims and go with something even "meatier"! Is there some ratio of front to rear width to follow? Even I can't justify the cost to widen the fronts only a half inch. Really looking for better grip in the rear. For me the stock suspension handled great but I went ahead and put a Roush stage 3 kit on it last summer. Now it really rides nice. Thanks for your advise!

RedFire281

Although I've never had rims widened, it seems to me that if you widen the 8-1/2" rim to 10" and the offset stays the same, wouldn't that put the additional 1-1/2" to the outside? Unless you also have the offset changed at the same time?

Just a thought.

Norm Peterson

Many, if not most, online tire supply houses provide tables of mfr-recommended rim widths for many of their tire makes/models. Generally, this is TRA information (Tire & Rim Association).

I would not recommend mounting tires above 50 profile on rims less then 70% as wide as the tire size (converted to inches by dividing by 25.4), or tires below 50 profile on rims less than 85% of the tire size.

If you're starting with rims of known width, keep the tire width number less than about 35 times the rim width in inches for over 50 profile. Under 50 profile, keep the tire mm less than 30 times the rim width in inches.

FWIW, tires under 50 profile are not supposed to have sidewalls that bulge out like the older tall profile tires do. They aren't intended to look "rounded". If a low-profile tire starts to look like the tires on a 1980's full-size car with the sidewalls way out past the wheel flanges - the rim is too narrow.


Norm

Norm Peterson

I think you mean 'backspacing. That would mean that all the added width was on the outside. Offset would change by half of the added width.

The only way to widen a wheel and keep the offset the same would be to add strips of equal width to both the inside and the outside. I doubt that anybody widens wheels that way on any regular basis, as it would involve double the work and an increased chance of distortion from the heat of the extra welding. Might as well just go to a 3-piece wheel where several "insides" and several "outsides" can be combined to vary both width and offset.


Norm

Somewhere in Time

Did you ever widen your factory fan blades? I'm really considering widening my rears 10" and running a 315/35/18 drag radial. Let me know, thanks man.

steelcomp

I thought about doing this when I first got my Mustang. You really can't find a much beter looking rim on this car. It's too bad someone hasn't jumped on this in the aftermarket.
I don't know if you can add that much width to it (going to ten" wide) without having interfearance/clearance issues on the inside. If you go ten inches wide, you may have to run wheel spacers or add some material to the hub area to move the nim outward. There's plenty of room to move outward, and I think it would look even better. Either case (spacer or adding material to the hub) will require longer wheel studs. I would not recommend having the outer edge of the rim widened. You'll always be able to see the weld, even if they re-machine and polish the rim, and I'm not sure there's even enough room to work with on these rims.
Also, the right way to widen these rims wouldn;t be to add a strip, it would be to have a second set of sacraficial rims and cut the new inner section with the added width from the second set of rims, and replace the old inner section. One weld, one new piece of original material.

Ford-a-tude

Funny, I just looked online yesterday at a couple fanblades to send out for widening. These rims can only be widened to the inside, which is fine as I don't want them sticking out. I hate that rims with the wrong offset look. I really like your idea of using 2 rims to create 1 wider rim with one weld only. I'm sure it's a better way to do it, but I have heard only good things about the work Weldcraft is doing. I might just wait until winter to do it. I couldn't be without my ride waiting for the rims to be done. Summer is just too damn short!

Philostang

You guys might want to hit up Terry Honaker. He's widened the OEM Bullitts, and posted tons of pics. He did use 1" spacers in back (actually, 1" bolt-on style spacers), but didn't say if it was required for clearance or just the look he was going for - he does a lot of "performance" things just for the look, so take that with a grain of salt.

You can go here and scroll down about 3/4 of the way to see pics of Weldcraft's job on his wheels as well as his receipt for the work.

Best,
-j