tester

My ww kit (non flare) is at the body shot being prepped (sanded and puttied). I took my car down while they did a test fit of the part, and it looks good.
Just to let others out there know, you do not need the mp3 upper grill, or new wheel wells. The kit fits without these, and leaves me a little puzzled. The only way this makes sense, since we use different grills and wheel wells than the mp3, is that the kit is a little flexible. Otherwise, I am not sure what a mp3 owner would do, as their front grills are different than ours. Would that leave gaps at the grill??

The ww kit is good quality, but there is a fair amount of prep work involved. My body shop says it took quite a few hours to sand and smooth out the kit (and showed me pictures).

This should save quite a few $$$, compared to getting a mp3 bumper, where you require the $200 grill and the wheel wells (unknown large $$ from dealer). You will still need the mp3 bumper though.
ANyways, the kit is being painted now, and the final installation should be next tuesday. Will post pics.

Vindication

I had that smae body kit installed on my Protege too but with the fender flares. I don't have the P5 or MP3. But around the headlights it didn't fit properly. It bows down underneath the headlights, the top of the bumper is like 1 inch too big, an the two pieces that are between the grill and the headlights are like 1/2 inch to big. I already wrote a letter of complaint to Wings West. Please let me know how your's turned out and tell me if and how they fixed the problems around the headlights. And please help me get together some people to get this point across to wings west. Thanx.

Aaron

i contacted wings west about a "rumored" front lip for the regular 3rd gen protege's. no lip...... but they are "retooling" the front bumper to make it fit on all the regular protege's with no modifications. wich i assume means we would'nt need the new bumper bar either.

JAC

So, if I get the Mp3/P5 front bumper I also need a new grill, new whellwells and new fog lights? with the ww kit I only need the fog lights right? no other modifications required to fit it?

tester

The only fitting issue on mine is that on the drivers side light, there is about 1/4" too much gap on one side. There is also almost no gap between the grill and the hood now. There is a pic somewhere with measurements of the mp3 and es grills, and I found that most of these problems are due to the mp3 design of the bumper. My body shop basically fit the bumper to the car and got around these issues (with the one headlight problem being the exception).
Overall I dont think its a problem, as I did not notice it until the body guy pointed it out. I think its what we get for basically being the first to put on a bumper that is designed for another car. I definately think it was worth it though. I would not have spent the $$ on the mp3 grill as I dont think I would have noticed the difference.