I’m a fan of the extreme lowered ‘look’ with wide tyres popularised by drifting. I understand that this can cause problems with tyres rubbing the arches and that the solution is “rolling the arches”. The only thing I don’t really know is what this actually means or where I can get it done? How wide/low can you go before this is an issue and is it an expensive service to have done?
Rolling the arches: A device is used to press up and out on the inside of the wheel arch and is rolled along the edge to flatten the seam that sticks inside the arch (which is normally the first thing to hit the tyre and cause problems when fitting wider tyres).
The device can be anything round (like a metal tube or a baseball bat) shoved between the tyre and the arch (takes a lot of time and care to get good results - I’ve done this and I wouldn’t want to do it to someone else’s car) or you can use an arch roller, which clamps on to the hub and has a roller on the working face (much easier to use but expensive). Risks are that you can crack the paint off your arches and need a respray. Some body shops can do this for you - try calling round in you local area to find somewhere that can do this for you.
I think 8" wide wheels can be fitted to a 5 before you need your arches rolling, but you’ll have to get the right offset on the wheel. I use 7" wide wheels but have 30mm spacers on my British Drift Championship MX5 and had rolled and flaired arches all round (before I replaced the front wings with carbon fibre to give loads of clearance).
Thanks so much for clearing this up for me - its been bugging me for a while! Now you’ve raised another question for me - what are spacers (no prizes for guessing I’m new to modifying)? Am I correct in assuming they fit between the hub and the wheel to widen the track?
Yep, you’re dead right about spacers. Only use them if you can’t get wheels in the right offset.