With aftermarket wheels and/or thicker brake rotors, the Fiero's stock wheel studs don't provide much thread engagement with the lug nuts. I found that on the front of my '88 Fiero I was only getting 8 turns with the C4 12" rotors and my Motegi wheels. That's 12 mm of thread engagement on a 12mm stud. Marginal at best. With the 3mm spacers I wanted to add behind my rotors to get some control arm clearance, I would be down to a dangerous 6 turns or 9mm.
I scoured the ARP and Dorman catalogs to find a good candidate. The 1988 front hub holes are about 0.490" with the stock studs removed. Dorman recommends a hole size between 0.017" and 0.027" under the knurl OD, while ARP recommends 0.005" for iron and steel hugs and 0.007" for aluminum. It's not clear why there's such a big range or difference between the recommended interference.
The closest longer studs that would fit are ARP 100-7708. These are M12x1.5 studs with an 0.509" knurl, making a 1/2" reamer an easy to find match for making the right hole size. When installed, these studs increase the thread length by 0.84" (21.4mm) over the stock studs.
I pressed the lug studs out of a brand new Rodney Dickman 88 front hub and measured the hole size as about 0.490" at the smallest and around 0.50" at the largest. I went ahead and pressed the ARP studs in without reading the hole to 0.503", and they went in without too much trouble. The hub didn't split, but a few metal shavings were produced by the knurl pushing through the hole.
Since these studs are so much longer than stock, open-ended lug nuts must be used. For GM wheels the stock ones should work. In the aftermarket, I found some inexpensive Gorilla lug nuts on Amazon.com. the part number is 20033SD for a set of 20 lug nuts and the spline drive socket. These nuts are narrow enough to fit in aftermarket wheels. I tried some White Knight lug nuts but they were too large in diameter to fit in the lug but counterbores in my wheels.
1988 Fiero extended wheel studs
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Re: 1988 Fiero extended wheel studs
I was never sure if the knurl on the stock lug studs had a basic diameter of 12mm or .500".
A set of aftermarket hubs I bought for the G000SE had 16mm knurls, and I had the same problem with wheel spacers. The only studs ARP had were for an older Celica at something close to $100 per wheel.
A set of aftermarket hubs I bought for the G000SE had 16mm knurls, and I had the same problem with wheel spacers. The only studs ARP had were for an older Celica at something close to $100 per wheel.
Re: 1988 Fiero extended wheel studs
Were the Dorman 610-323 wheel studs not long enough or did you want something stronger?
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Re: 1988 Fiero extended wheel studs
The 610-323 studs may have worked. The knurl is correct. I didn't check the length carefully since I saw the ARP studs and bought them hoping they were bull-nosed. Some of the photos showed that they were. However, they were not.fieroguru wrote:Were the Dorman 610-323 wheel studs not long enough or did you want something stronger?
Re: 1988 Fiero extended wheel studs
610-323 studs are 54mm long
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Re: 1988 Fiero extended wheel studs
The ARP studs are 63mm. It looks like the Dorman 610-323 would work with my current wheel and spacer configuration.fieroguru wrote:610-323 studs are 54mm long
The ARP studs are $2.84 each and the Dorman studs are $1.43 each.