Well it was about 40 degrees here today, so I finally spent some more time working on the radio install.
I do realize that many have installed one of these radios WITHOUT removing the triangle shaped bracket at the rear of the radio opening but I finally did end up popping it out with a larger flat head screwdriver. IMO it was completely necessary for my own sanity.
At first, I did get the radio to fit as it should with the black nipple on the back of the radio inserted where it should be into the triangle bracket BUT the left hand side of the bracket definitely was smashing into the wires coming out of the back of the radio. I didn't feel comfortable with leaving it this way thinking that eventually this could wear through the wires and cause a short. People have left the bracket in place with no problems, but I just didn't want to chance it.
In the back/center of the radio hole, there is a wire harness for the radio wires that has one screw in it that I pulled out to allow the plug to be shifted out of the way to create more room. I just put the screw back in the hole after moving the plug/harness.
To make things easier on myself, I did end up pulling the shifter surround(removing the shifter ball and the 4 screws; 2 under each ashtray) and the padded radio surround(5 screws; 3 under the shifter surround and 1 screw on each side of the heater controls). The radio surround will just slide out(carefully) even with the 2 gauges still in place above it.
Once I removed those 2 items, I was able to get a better view of what was going on behind the radio and also how the radio was sitting compared to the stock radio. I slid the stock radio temporarily back in and put marks with a black sharpie at all 4 corners to see how the 'new' radio fit compared to the old one.
IMO, you have to take a small round file and slot the 3 holes on the radio's mounting flanges since the 4th(bottom/right hole) is basically useless(IMO) being that there is only a thin tab of metal where the 4th mounting hole is located in relation to the 'new' radio's mounting flanges. I realize that many have mounted the radio just fine(somehow?) without modifying the 'new' radio's mounting flanges, but this is what I feel needed to be done to put the 'new' radio in the exact location as the stock fiero's radio.
I installed Kenwood KFC-415C speakers in the dash without much trouble. I noticed(in my case) I had to persuade them to fit a little by pushing down on them before installing the screws. I ended up not even using the 4x10 speaker baffles since they seemed to be useless considering how much the driver's side one would have needed to be cut up to fit.
I'll admit that this is a fairly long winded reply considering many have gotten away with just sliding their radio in with little/no effort, but unfortunately that wasn't the case for me.
I took the time to write all of this in the hopes that it may help someone else.
Thank you to all that have replied. I probably would have given up without knowing that this radio does in fact fit.........eventually
[This message has been edited by 86.4SPD.GT (edited 03-25-2018).]