Wheel widening experiences?

Looking for anyone with first-hand experiences with wheel widening -- anyone have it done? Have a particular vendor to recommend??

I have a set of SLP ZR-1 style wheels I'm using on my TVR -- they are 17 x 8, 0 offset and fit the car pretty well -- want to have the rears widened to 11 (11, because it's 1 more better than 10 )

Already checked with a wheelrite gauge..................

thx!

-jeff d

I did it once with a set of steel Mopar rally rims. big pain in the ass to cut'em and weld in a rolled section and get run outs right. Next time i'll just chuck up the rim in the lather and turn the weld that hold the center and buy a shell from a wheel place. I've welded my own rims to get my offsets and be right at max width rules for racing it's not that hard infact i'm thinking of starting a side shop to help pay for racing....

Are the wheels that you want to widen steel, or aluminum? I'd imagine that it would be harder to find someone to widen aluminum wheels.

Wheels America in Dallas.

Used them once. Good results. I'm about to have them widen another set of OEM aluminum wheels.

Thanks for the replies

The wheels are aluminum. I did talk (well, email exchange -- this is the 21st century!) with Wheelcraft in Michigan. Seemed reputable from the website -- quick response to me enquiry, no grammar problems

I didn't know Wheels America did widening -- this thread was prompted because I saw their ad in GRM while reading in the , erm, library this morning! And they're local in Dallas for me, which is a plus. I have used them before to straighten a wheel that the missus un-rounded while on her way to work one day...........

Guess I have to check them (wheels america) out in the near future. The TVR is going to another person's shop next week -- time for headers and exhaust. It should be there a couple months -- might be able to steal the front wheels off and get them to WA while the tubing is being bent.

thanks again!!

-jeff d

I think you meant to say WeldCraft, on Northville Road in Plymouth MI. I've seen their work first-hand, and it's pretty sexy. A good friend had a Bullitt Mustang and wanted fatter rear tires, so he had the OE wheels widened by 2". At the time it cost $180 each, and they came out perfect.

Yeah -- Weldcraft -- these guys:

http://www.weldcraftwheels.com/

And they quoted me $200/each for 3" added to each wheel.......seems okeh to me

I've used Weldcraft many times, Mi roads kill wheels. I've had Mustang and Focus wheels repaird by them and driven on Mustang wheels that where widened by them. Very very happy with their work.

I know someone who used weldcraft, and yeah - good results.

Well -- thanks to the favorable support here as well as the great treatment I've gotten by phone and email, I just sent my wheels off to Weldcraft to have 3" added to each.....I'll post pics and a review when they get back here approx. 3 weeks from now........

As an added datapoint, I stopped by Wheels America to get a quote. They will only widen wheels up to 2" and will charge extra $$$ if you don't bring in donor wheels to do the widening. Didn't like what the guy was saying, that anything that was widened more than 2" was flat-out unsafe, that anyone else that goes beyond 2" is just doing that to take people's money, etc......When I asked him if it made any difference on the amount of widening based on the offset of the wheel, he just kept repeating that anything over 2" is categorically unsafe.....I didn't think that 2" of added max wheel width is was some sort of weird cultural universal, so I went with someone that could answer my questions technically

more later,

-jeff d

I'm also thinking about getting some wheels widened. Both my cars are 5x108 bolt patterns so finding something decent and wide is getting difficult. Post some pics of the work when it's done? Thanks!