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At first blush it certainly looks like the original threaded extender would be a player when threading the OEM body. As it is shown, it really doesn't affect compression but will limit wheel drop, and that may not be an issue. I am sure a person schooled in CAD or similar programs could simulate the wheel travel from bottom to top and see what the strut is actually doing. Excellent visual aids😎

@alchemist: the threads were machined. Side by side assembly comparison: top: OEM fully extended (held extended by clamp.) Distance from top of sway bar mount to upper perch: 17.00” center: OEM body w/ Monroe insert. Distance from top of sway bar mount to upper perch: 16.125” bottom: OEM body w/ KYB insert. Distance from top of sway bar mount to upper perch: 15.75” the Monroe insert cartridge is approximately .125” taller than the KYB. Due to design differences, the KYB also has a shorter piston stroke for the identical application as the Monroe. as a side note, the Monroe gas charged unit comes compressed. The unit I received did not automatically extend once rotated to “unlock” from shipping state, and seems to have compression resistance similar to a hydraulic shock vs. substantial resistance on the KYB gas charged unit. Maybe the Monroe unit is faulty? the threaded height above the perch is a problem for assembly and there are two options to address: 1. Extend the thread with coupler and threaded rod which also raises the upper strut mounting perch. This also addresses the problem of enough piston length to extend through the upper rubber mount stack up. 2. Use a spacer under the insert cartridge as indicated by @alchemist and use the weld-on threaded adapter and threaded sleeve approach. The weld on adapter would be needed to extend the length of the shock body to allow for the 1.5” spacer insert. The OEM strut body is not long enough to accommodate.

The alarm system gets quite finicky with Reattas/Rivieras due to their age. Sometimes, the system will go off, exterior lights flashing, horn sounding off, for no apparent reason. This happened on two of my previous Rivieras, and my current Reatta. Best to just pull the 20amp fuse way under the driver's side dash.

This really looks nice. I will call the bar stock feeder shop I requested the quote from on the sleeve nut. DPS.01 did your machine shop use a tap, or did they machine the threads? (looks like machined). The reduction in overall length may be a problem as the stroke of the suspension will be 1.5" less. Simply extending the sleeve nut by 1.5" will only cause issues as the upper mount assembly will not be in compression. The insert strut has the right stroke, but the body length is shorter so the solution would be to put a 1.5" shim under the far end of the strut (in the original housing) to move the rod shoulder up by 1.5". The sleeve nut is designed to fix the 1" thread to shoulder length issue. I will try and pull together an assembly drawing later today that will show how things would work with the shim. My goal is to maintain OEM suspension geometry *if* possible.

The commonly available service or reman ECM’s generally require the original memcal or eprom to be swapped into the new ECM to keep the factory calibration. I believe their were three different prom numbers for that model year. In diagnostic’s the last item, ed99, is the prom id code and there is a chart for the code in the tutorial area of the ROJ

Way back when I was really into drag racing, I remember a theory that said, "the only substitute for cubic inches is cubic money." That was back in the good ole days when we thought if you could produce over one horsepower per cubic inch you had a high performance engine. 🙂