I just got a new pair of KYB gas-a-just shocks for my newly aquired 88 Formula.
The body of the KYB is 3/4" longer than than the old Delco unit. The stroke of the KYB is about 1" longer. Overall the fully extended length of the KYB is about 1 3/4"
longer than the old Delco Pliacell. I think the front suspension travel of all stock fieros is limited by the shock. There are no bumpers on the upper A-arms. These KYBs
let the front suspension hyper extend until the upper A-arm contacts the base of the shock tower. (metal to metal!) I'm very reluctent to use them. Does anybody have any
practical experience with this units? Are the KYB GR-2s the same? My other '88 Formula has Koni shocks. The dimentions of the Koni was identicle to the old delco unit.

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For what it's worth, I have them on my '87GT. They seems to be a bit different length than the stockers, but they went in fine, even with Eibachs. The ride is great though.

Maybe I'm missing something, but how can anything "hyperextend" when the shock is bolted to the lower control arm and the upper spring perch (the shock isn't *that* strong!)?

When everything is bolted into place (shock, sway bar end link, balljoints to spindle, spring, etc.) then there is only a limited amount of space for things to compress/extend.

I have used the Gas-A-Justs as well as the GR-2's without any ill effects.

I would think that the extra length of the KYB just means that the piston will stay further down inside the bore of the tube than the OEM Delcos.

I have KYBs on the front of my '86 GT with no problems.

Maybe hyperextend is a poor word to use.
All I'm saying is that when the car is jacked up and the front suspension is allowed to drop to full extension it is metal to metal contact (the underside of the upper a-arm hitting the base of the shock tower) that stops the movement of the suspension. The KYB shock still has about an inch of extension left. When doing the same procedure with Delco and Koni shocks I get a gap (between the upper a-arm and shock tower) of about 1/4" and 1/8" respectively. The shock and it's upper bushing brings the suspension to a low impact stop.

Is there anybody with an '88 and KYB gas-a-justs that can look into this?

quote Originally posted by cone shark: I just got a new pair of KYB gas-a-just shocks for my newly aquired 88 Formula. The body of the KYB is 3/4" longer than than the old Delco unit. The stroke of the KYB is about 1" longer. Overall the fully extended length of the KYB is about 1 3/4" longer than the old Delco Pliacell. I think the front suspension travel of all stock fieros is limited by the shock.

Right, right, right!! I remember this!! You asked for it.....

You're right. Exactly right. And you got the same reaction from the Fiero community when I went through this a bunch of years ago... I'll jump to the end and tell you that I ended up running the LE1012 from Monroe instead.

Now for more detail than you ever cared to know. Please bear with me, these are some fading brain cells. It's been a while.

First, one detail you forgot to mention is that the increased body length will also reduce the compression travel also before the shock bottoms out internally.

The general consensus (as you have seen from the other responses) is that it has been empirically determined that the increase in body length is small enough that it doesn't cause any problems.

I haven't heard of anyone's coil springs come flying out because of the increased down travel, and I certainly haven't heard of anyone crushing the shock on compression, because it bottomed out before the rubber bumper stopped the suspension travel.

Both the "recommended" KYB struts are the same dimension (monotubes and GR-2).

KYB 343127 GR-2 - gas charged
KYB KG4513 Gas-A-Just - Monotube

They are both too long.

In my attempts to get a better fitting shock, I did a little digging in the KYB catalog, and there was another shock that had the perfect body length and diameter. Only problem with it was the lower mounting bar was too short (the distance between the mounting bolts was smaller than on the Fiero).

What I didn't think of at the time was pulling the lower mounting bar out of my leaky stock shocks and stuffing it into the rubber bushing on the "correctly sized" KYB's.

And now, alas... I don't remember the number from this other KYB, and KYB (in their infinite wisdom) stopped listing the sizes in the catalogs sometime in the past few years.

I've been meaning to call them and ask their teck support if they would find me a shock by size and see if they can dig up that shock number for me, but my Monroes seem to be holding up and I just haven't had the drive.

If you get energetic, maybe you could do BOTH of us a favor.

Call them and see if they can find a shock that has the same body length, but has a lower mounting bar that's too short.

KYB America
(630) 620-5555
901 Oak Creek Dr.
Lombard, IL 60148

If you do get someone to find it, see if you can get a dimension on the lower mounting bar. I didn't measure that part when I had them in my hands and the diameter is important if you want to use the lower Fiero bar.

I've heard talk of another option (on this forum I believe). I haven't looked into this, but...

Posted 10-03-2001 by "Wannabe"
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For the '88 fronts, you can also use shocks for the 84-88 Buick GN. These
require a very small amount of grinding or filing on the opening in the
lower control arm, just to get the shock body to pass through, but
otherwise they fit perfectly and work great. They are also usually cheaper
and always easier to obtain
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Please let me know if there are any questions or anything else I can do to help.

-Bruce at FTF Engineering.

PS - I did send KYB a message from their website and got dead air... They never got back to me.