I'm currently restoring a Fireblade Evo whose shocks I believe are the same length as the Fireblade 2000 (I used to own one of those too).
When I was about to rebuild the Schumacher shocks yesterday I remembered I had enough bits to make up a set of Kyosho small bores so I grafted these on instead as you can see:
Fronts are the same length as the originals when Kyosho medium length lower ballends are used but I had to reduce their 20mm stroke to the 18mm of the originals using a Maplin washer on the shaft as shown. Likewise on the rear, Kyosho long ballends were used to equalise the overall length along with two Maplin washers to reduce the 28mm stroke to the 24mm stroke of the Schumacher items.
Another thing you need to know to do this is I used 42mm (longer than stock) rear Kyosho shock bodies taken from a ZX-5 SP2008 but I think early RB5s used this size as well, part no. is W5187-01V.
With the collars as shown ride height is 18mm front and rear with all electrics and a stick LiPo fitted (Kyosho light/dark yellow springs).
Hope this helps, having taken a break from racing i'm enjoying a couple of vintage builds. I was building this car as shelf queen but i'm dying to run it now!
