Ah! Clarification. It's not latency per se, but a timing problem when the plugin is used. The track that has the PHA-979 gets out of sync with the rest of the project, right?
That would be a bug in the plugin. It's not reporting its internal latency correctly to the host. That's preventing SONAR from automatically delaying everything else to match it. You might be able to work around it by temporarily disabling plugin delay compensation (PDC) and turning it back on again. That forces SONAR to re-query all the plugins and re-calculate their cumulative latencies.
The good news is that if you don't need the phase-shifting feature, Channel Tools will do what you want. For something a little fancier that's also mono-compatible, you might also have a look at Meldaproduction's
MStereoSpread plugin. Wait for it to go on sale for $44.
As for other ways to enhance width without resorting to delays, it's all based on the basic prerequisite for stereo width perception, which is that there must be left-right differences. Anything that causes the left and right channels to be different from one another will enhance width. That starts with panning, which means you should be using mainly mono tracks in your projects. Ironically, too many stereo tracks will hurt stereo width.
Other techniques include equalizing each side differently, preferably with complementary EQ, and using M/S processing to exaggerate the existing L/R differences. Channel Tools can do that latter trick, too. Some equalizers and compressors support M/S processing. That means you can using a M/S EQ to boost highs on the sides (most of our directional cues come from the upper-mid frequencies) or use an M/S compressor to compress the center but not the sides. This works well for drum overheads.