I believe you want it exactly the same length as the original pinion you are mating it to. You are going to "graft" it correct? Meaning take the 4.88 pinion shaft from the first gen and take your stock pinion shaft and mate them together. I am trying to build a 4.88 LSD right now for my car, but I just paid iscracing.net $295 to do the machine work. He has complete diffs ready to go. I am thinking maybe I should have just bought one of those instead.