Expanded Metal Protege5 Grill

[03P5]

Since I've seen a bunch of cars with out front mesh grills ( on top of the stock on ) and the "Civic" looking grill inserts, I thought I'd try to get rid of the silver emblem, and make the car look meaner all at once for almost no money.

The metal wasn't wide enough so its two pieces soldered together, and I havn't cut the little posts off as I'm not sure if I'm keeping it or not.

Here it is anyways!

 

[twilightprotege]

looks pretty good. i want to do exactly the same, but try and find metal in the same size as the lower grill and use that to replace the big M in the stock grill....any ideas on how to do that????

 

[03P5]

I was..

thinking of that as well, but the best I could do was get another bottom grill, and heat it up in the oven and try and mold it into shape to fit the top. That worked about as well as it sounds it should.

As for replacing the emblem, the problem is the stock grill come to a point, so the little diamonds aren't flat, so you can't just through a piece in from another grill, it kind of sucks.

I'm happy with the look of this though.

 

[CruzinAltitude]

Im not really sure I like it. It looks well done, but there just seems to be to much of a depression from the hood/bumper to the grill.

 

[twilightprotege]

yeah that does suck about the top grill coming to a point. it's not something that i'm going to spend heaps of time on in the close or near future - i have other things i want to do first - i definately want to keep the car looking stock, but gotta get rid of the damn M (not damn mazda, but just damn the big M)

 

[p5sundevil]

well what I am doing is leaving the upper grill bar and painting it body color so it will look like autexe style, then Im taking some aluminized mesh similar to that in the pics above but smaller holes and thicker aluminum and painting it black. Then I am going to remove the chrome part of the big M in the middle of the grill and put the new one over it instead, maybe a small little emblem in the upper right corner if I like it.

If I do like it I will do the same to the lower grill.

The mesh in home depot is weak and in like autozone it is 30 bux for a rectangular piece, I got mine off ebay, 6in by 3 foot and the bottom gap is exactly 3in tall so it would work. like 4.99 plus shipping was like 10-12 bux.

I have the mesh cut and primered right now, will do the first few coats of black paint tonight(wont get home from work/school till 10) and the rest tomorrow morn.

eventually I am going to take the time and make some mesh fog light covers like STi ones that will be painted black or stock body color with the MS for mazdaspeed or something. I think it would look good.

 

[twilightprotege]

sundevil, take some piccies when done!