So yesterday a lady (I use that term loosely) backed into my 7 and caused a decent bit of damage. To me, any damage is catastrophic, even a scratch would almost be a life threatening offense. This lady was lucky that I was at work or else her body may be decomposing somewhere. Anyways she smacked the left front fender and bumper, and upon further review it seems as if she pushed the side of the headlight housing in, and its now rubbing bad. I was considering taking it to my local Mazda dealer for an estimate because I want a price using all oem parts. I understand they may cost a little more, however I'm unsure of the availability of said parts. If by chance they aren't available and I decide to go with an aftermarket option, will there be anything special needed for a 99spec bumper or feed style fenders?

 

You will want the 99 Chin Spoiler and the 99 spec rebar and fog lights.

 

Thank you MazdaSpeedDan, I knew about the lights and chin spoiler, but I kinda figured there would be something else. If I go that route, ill have to find some 99spec sideskirts.

 

You also have the rear spoiler and the circle tail lights. For the plateless front bumper I can get them shipped for $334. As far as the side skirts I think there might be 2 types of popular 99 spec ones people use.

This 2 piece one which I like


And then these


Im doing the 99 spec conversion so if you need any help let me know.

 

Heres my 99 rear end. I have the Peter Farrell exhaust on right now, I had the regular dual tip on there but the muffler was beyond repair so I just ended up putting this new one on. I am currently looking for a new dual tipped exhaust.

 

I was already considering buying some 99spec lights and either sending them to Theorie to have him do his conversion or following the write up that David Hayes had. I'm so torn on the side skirts though, I love the 99spec, but the second style (I think they're called feed style) side skirts just look so damn sexy. Ill be going without a spoiler when everything is said and done, I do have an R1 spoiler on it now and I plan on using a shineauto rear diffuser, the street style one, not the very aggressive track style. A lot of it is going to boil down to how much the insurance company will want to pay.

 

if you go with a 99 spec bumper you dont need the 99 rebar. You just have to cut holes for the blinkers to fit.

 

99 Spec rebar will get in the way of a FMIC as well.

 

do the david hayes write up. you wont regret it. :P

 

sexy

 

Imitation is the highest form of flattery. Glad to see MY original style design is still getting other people props.

 

Theorie, you sir, are a sly devil! LOL! But in all honesty I'm not running a FMIC. [IMG][/IMG]
I had the estimate done by a local Mazda dealer, and thus far they're at 2434.53, and that's only what they can see now, if anything was damaged under the panels, then of course it would jump some more. I called my insurance company and they wanted to send me to some no-name body shop and I called them today to talk to them about where they get their parts, etc. I told the employee that I had an estimate done at Mazda for 2434.53 and he tried to tell me they were going to total it because of the repair cost. I told him he was crazy, that it wasn't anywhere near the value of the car, to which he replied that he didn't know of any 93's worth 13K. I'll be calling my insurance here shortly to cancel that appointment and take it somewhere else. I'm kinda pissed because they're telling me they would probably be using used parts, which im 100% against.
Heres the damage.

 

why not just use that fender and get it fixed? Its OEM fender and you know it fits the car. The damage is so easily fixable it makes me giggle inside

 

You need to do some fiddling to get the 99 spec fog lights though since the rebar has the mounts for them.

Don't forget, you also need a 99 spec undertray and brake/oil cooler ducts as well.

 

Look at one of my previous threads where I converted to urethane plateless 99-spec front end. Do not need the fogs (personally I don't like them), can get the 99-spec style turnlamps off ebay (and they'd be plug-n-play whereas the OEM units need a harness or splicing) and do NOT pay for the front 99-spec rebar, the body shop will just need to slightly enlarge the openings on your stock rebar.

 

be glad she didn't just take off like 99.5% of people would do in a parking lot hit and run scenario.

the world is full of **** gobblers.

 

It really doesn't look like too much to the fender in that picture, but the fender is dented in pretty bad, it even creased the fender at the crest of the wheel well. I'd really not like to use any sort of bondo, filler or anything and would prefer it to be done with new material. That probably isn't an option since "new oem" material from what I'm being told by the dealer, really isn't available. So it's going to have to be used. I'm more worried about some **** poor quality pay and spray bullshit and improper lines. And Mr. Theorie, you will be very "flattered" by my car when everything is said and done. You're build has really inspired me, the attention to detail in every single aspect is astonishing. While my final setup will most likely involve some Advan RS, Shine Auto SpecGT Front Fenders, SpecGT Sideskirts, SpecGT Hood, Spec-RE (RE Amemiya Style) Street Diffuser, Rear Low Profile Spoiler, 99 Spec taillights with your original design and David Hayes diy, Pettit TrakPro Stage3 coilovers, the engine is a 99spec motor with roughly 35k on it right now and will receive a street port upon rebuild. This car won't be finished for years and years, and look forward to doing so with my son, as one day this will be his car. For now I'm just going to keep it pretty mild.

 

Yep oil cooler duct(s) Kinda important lol. But the undertray isn't really needed. I'm still using my USDM, I just redrilled it to accept the new mounting points.

 

That's what the knightsports adapter is for.

Ahhhhh interesting. I guess I can save money on that bit then. I was under the impression that they were necesarry and somehow mated to the the ducts in a special way.

 

You mean: "switching to the '99 undertray isn't needed, you can still use usdm undertray."

NOT: "no undertray is needed at all"

You most certainly need SOME sort of undertray on the car. #1 to protect the car from debris, #2 to duct air though the radiator

 

i suggest you to do them tailights conversion yourself, unless you want to wait a long time for Tom to do them for you.

 

^ lol, or never. Now the NHTSA knows my name and where to find me, I'm not sure if I would even risk making another set...even the brighter Version 2 lights that came up with. :\

 

lol @ theorie. I agree its a great idea and you should get credit for it, but i do give david credit for his write up of how to do it yourself because i'm the kinda guy that would rather do it myself

 

The funny part is I actually recorded a "how to" video guides for making the tails, but I never got to release them. It's all on YouTube still, just set to private. I was planning to "release" the DIY when I started selling the Version 2 - for those who prefer to DIY. Oh well.

</thread hijack>

 

No, please do release those videos. Davids setup is great however a video showing the diy process to a certain extent would be amazing. It's not a thread hijack, and if anything I should possibly consider just turning this into my build thread. Your insights have been greatly appreciated and I look forward to turning to the community in the future for help.