your friend wouldn't really need to flip the tires, he would just have to put the wheels on the opposite side to correct the tread direction.

 

yeah i guess that would work [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

I have done this on almoast every one of my quads. Currently it is done, front and rear on my banshee with no effects. (other than more bump steer)
No bearing problems at all.

I drilled a hole in the inner part of the rims, put in new valve stems, put new stems reversed in the stock holes so they would seal, and clear the brakes.
(just as the other guy did)
It is a bit of a hassle, as you need to break the beed to get access to the inside of the tire. My local motorsports place just popped the bead for free.
(you dont need to remove the tire, just pop the beed)

 

i had my rims flipped also as you can see in my picture. the valve stem hit the caliper so i decided to buy those HIDDEN VALVE STEMS off of JC WHITNEY for around $20, i had them like that for a while but the steering was just too sensitive.

 

Can the back rims be flipped as well on the raptor, to widen the stance?

 

if you just do the back and not the front will that help the handling and whats better to widen for better handling the back or front?

 

if you flip the raptors rear wheel, the rappy will not widen it will actually get smaller on the back because of the offset the wheels have this is true for the stock wheels, i dont know about other wheels

 

There's 3 options that I can think of for widening the rear of the rappy 660
1. Wheel spacers
2. New offset wheels
3. Wider axle(I recommend this over the other two, it's more expensive and more work to install, but it's a lot stronger and more reliable, the stock axle is a little too weak for hard riding with the extra leverage)

 

for handling what is better a wider front or rear what should i be more focused on and whats the differance in handling caricteristics from wideining the back over the front

 

personally, I would do both at the same time. From my experiences when the front and rear are different widths the cornering is a little on the unstable side. If you were to do only one, I think the best would be to do the front first because I think that has a bigger impact on the cornering and stability, and you wouldn't have to worry about clipping trees with the rear tires because they stick out more.