[MikkelRS]

Sooo ive given up on the mazda 3 knuckle all together, as its impossible to mate a mazda3 outer CV with a ford inner without custom made shafts, so I went and welded up the stock hubs and remachined out the 5 x 114.3 pattern in its place, using early 05 knuckles to keep my struts, upgrading balljoints, and using mazda 3 front calipers/brackets with the mazda3 front rotors. I have the rotors at work crossdrilling them for shits and giggles right now, so theyre not in the pictures yet.        

[drunkinmonkey]

looks sweet!!! hopefully with the wholes being to close to the outer edge everything will still be ok

[.2001.focus.]

So you welded up the 4x108 holes and re drilled 5x114.3 ?

[MikkelRS]

There should be no problem with the holes that close. Even if the material cracked, it wouldn't open up to allow the studs to go anywhere. And yeah, welded up the 4x108 and went 5x114.3. It was probably the easiest because of the Mazda 3 brakes being extremely similar to the 05+ focus

[.2001.focus.]

I think I need a little info on this. Why are you doing it?

[GFXjamie]

The focus hubs are known to be weak when it comes to auto cross or large tires, I am curious on longevity doing 5x4.5

Good luck and looks good

[MikkelRS]

Well, rim selection - I'm also going rs widebody, so finding 4x108 rwd offset rims are few between, second- love doing something different on a very modded platform. The focus hubs are sorta weak under extreme conditions but they'll be fine for mild use. If need be I'll have to make another set out of stronger material. So far the only thing that wasn't straight forward was making hub centric rings for the Mazda 72mm center hub for the rotors.

[.2001.focus.]

Hmm interesting. I love what you are doing. I wish my phone would load the pictures so I could see them. I had some American racing 16 x8 wheels off a mustang on my car before. I was going to do a wide body but never got around to it and switched to cougar wheels.

---

I have 2 pictures of what they looked like but nothing really to show how much they came out. They would rub like a ma fudger.

[MikkelRS]

That's awesome. I can totally tell that a set if red offsets will work wonders. I have a kinda crappy set of 17" fwd rims that I'll be using spacers to start with- only cause the price was right. I'll have some shots of the rear brakes from a Mazda 3 ready to go tonight.

[.2001.focus.]

Yeah I was planning on moding some ranger fender flairs to work on my car, but lost interest

[MikkelRS]

That would have been a lot of work too, though making new wide rear ones from scratch isnt easy either...

[.2001.focus.]

Well the ranger is kind of small so my first plan was to see just how much bigger they were then the focus wheel wells. Also I wasn't planning on them going from bottom and the way around to bottom. From and 1/4 or basically where the front bumper meets the fender to about half way down.then I was going to do mud flaps the rest of the way

[MikkelRS]

   

Got the rears painted up, gunna get new dust shields though.

[GFXjamie]

There are so many wheels available in 4x108 in rwd offset and lots of wheels with custom offset.

You could of looked outside tire rack and looked at company's like Rotiform and Avant Garde. 1000$ or less, custom offset and bolt pattern for 17"x8-8.5

[zx3kash]

^this.

[MikkelRS]

In all honesty, 10" disc and 9" drums look pretty putrid under any sort of rim. So this is an upgrade all around. Now I can use stock mustang rims or aftermarket, used being plentiful for cheap. Plus now I own a focus you cant pick off the shelf

[GFXjamie]

Again, there are upgrades to svt brakes, massive makes a front big brake kit, tce, advance trac the list goes on.

My focus is anything but off the shelf. Anyways there are a lot more options than you would initially expect without some research or background

[MikkelRS]

I can see the different options, trust me I've researched. I only had stock zx3 brakes to start with, so I upgraded to early 05 knuckles to use the Mazda brakes. I'm also cheap as hell and have so far spent much less than factory zx3 brakes would have cost, getting parts from pick and pulls, and doing all the work myself. And by off the shelf, I mean things you can order that already work together. I know you can't buy or order 5x114.3 hubs or hub->rotor centric rings, the rest is easy. Besides I don't plan on buying $1000 rims for a car I bought for $600

[.2001.focus.]

You sir, are awesome. Lol. Got a lot oh skill doing that all yourself.

[MikkelRS]

       
Uh oh! getting done!