hello I was able to get my 4thgen pedals in just fine with out firewall padding. I put the clutch brake pedal in and bolted to firewall first to mark holes for slave and drilled them out. also when I had it bolted up the top bolt that everyone drills out lined up great.
Question is how important is the padding should I unbolt the slave and put the piece back in there.

When I put the pedal assembly in with padding there, the bolt on top and slave holes in padding were not lining up

Also the clutch slave rod lines up pretty good with pedal better than the sticky done some years back

 

On mine, I left the padding in there.

 

mine was falling apart I guess I will through back in there
I find it weird that it bolted right up in there with not drilling hole on top of pedal assembly