How do wide body kits work?
 

I think it's a stupid question but can't figure it out for the life of me. I know the body get gets tacked on but what about the wide stance. I find it hard to believe its either a spacer or crazy offset. So how is it done? I searched and couldn't fin anything specific. I found wide body kits with stock wheels, terrible idea, and found those that look good. What did mad mike do on his? What do non-professional drivers do?

but crazy offsets it is. mad mike was running 18x11 and 18x12 -35 with his weds to accommodate his widebody. and if you didn't know, the oem fenders need to be cut up or super flared to avoid rubbing, or else what would the point of a wide body be?

I really like the look but would struggle to butcher my car to do it........although?????

Yeah I was thinking the same thing. I believe crazy offsets are hard on the wheel bearings, due to the simple machine the wedge, the further out you are from the connection point the more force pushing against the pivot point.

Yeah, I am personally against spacers because usually when they are used you lose some of your contact patch. You don't really ever want to lose area from stock tire contact from what I have heard.

:wallbash:

If you want to do it right have somebody fab wider A-arms and use longer shocks or shock and steering rack extensions.
Different ETs or spacers are only good for fine-tuning (ie 0.5mm, 1mm, 2.5mm 5mm spacers).

Plenty of track race cars use spacers. Besides, the odds of someone actually installing a wide body kit are 1 in 100,0000 so it's a moot issue anyway.

Spacers are so terrible for your car that a much desired, highly respected brand that sells rather expensive sports cars uses a 25mm spacer to push it's wheels out to fill the fenders instead of having new wheels cast for that particular model, and have been for almost 20 years.

http://blog.kw-suspension.com/wp-con...4_kSodo-X3.jpg
http://photos.motoiq.com/Event-Cover...MG_8180-X3.jpg

9k a friend of mine (hes a member here) has a custom all metal widebody 8. he asked me not to post pics because hes still getting somethings worked out with his turbo kit. hes the same member that sued scott and forced him to close his shop in fl. he bought the car new in 04 and it has been a very long project. it spent a lot of time in florida (used as a demo w/o his knowledge) then went to ny for the bodywork

Awesome, I have only seen a couple over the years and only one was privately owned. That would be nice to see.

he lives about 10 minutes from me and hes gonna use it as a show car mostly. lots of tvs and stero shit, airbags, ect. its probably the lowest mileage 04 on this board.

How low we talking here :suspect:

he got it new in 04 and its still not done lol. however it spent a ton of time in fl as i said while some pos known here to some ripped my buddy off for a lot of time and money

I have a couple bmw's and other things she can polish for me. :yesnod:

When I bought my one I was tossing up between 3, one of which was advertised as a wide body. Didn't see it in the flesh but wish I had now.

The whole point of a widebody is to fit wider wheels. I mean yeah, they look awesome. But the whole point is so you can get wide wheels with some serious negative offset.

^+1. It seems I wasn't very clear before and many people seem to think I dislike spacers, which isn't true! I was a little angsty because of traffic that day, so I apologize. I was a bit hot tempered that day and came in swinging. An extreme example of what I was saying not to do is use spacers to push out a stock width wheel to make a wide body kit look good. My personal view is that if you can fit a wheel without using spacers you should do so. I know nobody who has had trouble with spacers (irl). I suppose I am trying to say is that needing to fit something and wanting to fit something are two different scenarios which is really up to you to decide.

Well said. If you're gonna invest all that money into a widebody at least throw down for some x12 3-piece wheels.