has anyone tried converting Cobalt struts into a Fiero?

the strut housing is shorter, allowing the car to be lowered without bottoming out the strut.

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87 coupe stroked 4 cyl, 5 speed

At first glance, the mounting flange for the knuckle attachment is completely different. Many of the later model FWD struts adjust camber and caster with the upper bushing plate. The Fiero only allows for camber adjustment via a slotted hole in the knuckle attachment bracket. This adjustment location and method is pretty unique outside of the GM small family vehicles of the 80s and early 90s.

These Cobalt struts could likely be "made to work" with a lot of fabrication (but this could be said for most struts as well), but not sure it would be any easier or better than modifying an existing Fiero strut for a more off the shelf insert (which could be shorter). If you go this route, then you empty the strut housing, which allows you to cut and weld it in whatever manner needed, then install the fully loaded insert to restore function to the strut.

FWIW, the Koni discontinued the Fiero struts because they lost their supplier for this lower knuckle attachment bracket. The Fiero was the only application in their product catalog that used it, so given the low volume and their desire to source the bracket more local to their manufacturing facility, they discontinued the Fiero strut. What this means to us, is any that application that Koni sells struts for, won't be a direct fit to the Fiero.

Are there any non Fiero specific Struts that anyone has ever retrofit?

[This message has been edited by 2.5 (edited 12-11-2019).]

To bad that the Fiero sturts are not rebuildable. I had a 1st gen VW Scirocco that you could rebuild the struts with cartridge inserts .

Im currently working with JRZ Engineering to have Fiero Specific fully adjustable shocks, struts and springs made for our cars. Ill post a thread about it once more work has been complete.

quote Originally posted by 2.5: Are there any non Fiero specific Struts that anyone has ever retrofit?

Yes.
Several people used the van struts from the same era that used the same lower bracket, but there are no fancy adjustable struts for that application either.

One guy made a clamp on aluminum bracket and used some insert style struts. It was a pretty large chunk of aluminum and quite a bit of material needed to be removed = more cost than most want to spend.
https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/096777.html

This guy used some QA1 struts, but had to build new upper strut mounts - his application was a wide body, might not be room to do on a stock body:

http://www.ns355.ca/struts.html

There might be an application where you could convert a stock Fiero strut to accept a new Koni insert, but no one has done it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXSnNZt3NiI

Actually someone on the forum has done the Koni strut insert but I do not recall who it was. If I go back to a strut based rear suspension, that is what I plan on doing. I grabbed a couple of struts at our local pick and pull just to get all the hardware that I no longer have. As for the QA1 struts, they are no longer available either. The closest you can get are QA1 kits for Camaro/Firebird struts but they are over 1000.00 for a pair. And without measuring a set I have no idea if they will work. The Koni inserts are not cheap either at about 500 for a pair but at least they are available and will work.

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86 GT built 2.2 ecotec turbo
rear SLA suspension
QA1 coilovers on tube arms