I'm thinking about going to 17" wheels and was wondering manufacturers people reccommended for good lightweight aluminum kickass rims that won't break the bank? Is it even a safe idea to go to a 17" wheel on this car?

Thanks for your thoughts folks.

You shall be fine with 17" wheels. I got some heavy ASA'* on mine and its still running good. Just be prepared to be bogged down with the added weight.

Damn. Hadn't considered the weight.. You think the advantage of the larger wheels is worth the weight increase?

I think the bigger wheels, 17'* and 18'* look the best on our cars. I have a winter set I keep around, which are the ghetto gold'* 16" and they are really light compared to the ones I have now. Look around tirerack and compare weight. The NA Bonne'* are effected the most, since we dont have that instant power like the supercharged one'*. You can always get some basic mods to almost make up for that loss of hp to the ground, which is what I did. Pretty much the only advantage is the looks and the traction you get with the bigger tires.

Larger wheels are an advantage? In what way?

he musy mean visually

I was under the impression Bigger wheel = better traction. Am I wrong?

In several ways you're quite wrong. The sidwall does alot for us in the way of traction. Because it flexes, it can 'give' a little in order to keep the tread on the road. On a lower-profile tire, this can't happen as well. To get the firmer 'feel' in cornering, upgrade your suspension.

The larger wheels are more rotating mass as well, and will slow you down on a quick launch.

Work on your suspension and either get better tires or have them siped. I've run siped tires on my 93 for almost 2 years now, so the new set on it (less than 100 miles on them) were siped when they were installed.

I just had the tires on my 95 siped yesterday due to their shittyness (I didn't buy them, they came on the car) in the rain yesterday. It improved my wet grip by a good 50% (extreme case due to the crappy tires on that thing...."wingro tires".

Siping isn't generally intended for handling, but rather traction and braking in a straight line, but it does help in all conditions.

Beefier springs, swaybars, endlinks, and struts will do for your handling/cornering. Not bigger wheels.

A good rule of thumb for handling is to use the smallest diameter wheel that will fit over your brakes. The rotational inertia of larger, heavier wheels will hurt your acceleration and braking. The unsprung mass will adversely impact the suspensions ability to keep the contact patch on the pavement.

Within a given size lower weight will be more expensive. A good explanation for this and many other wheel/tire related things may be found here:
http://www.tirerack.com/about/techcenter.jsp

A good example is the wheel in my avitar. It is 16x7 and 11lbs it is also over $325 but, makes a very noticable differance from the 21lb wheel it replaced.

Thank you folks. Another misconception bites the dust. I'm going to be evaluating my entire suspension and see where I want to take the car. Right now, I've been focusing on certain "consumable" upgrades, like getting rid of the semi-metallic brake pads and Piece of crap rotors the last owner put on the car and ditching the paper CAI.

I wasn't thrilled with the tires so I was thinking about including that in my first round, but now I'll wait.