Hello!
SE? oh nice you guys had trim levels, fun. In the US there weren't any, but there were a few options (leather, moonroof, 6 disc, the abs and side airbags package, etc).
There is a
ton of info on here and a lot of people who can have had the cars totally apart and done lots of mods, so if you have any questions just let us know!
As for inexpensive mods to improve the car from stock..
I'd definitely recommend a short throw shifter. I have the twm (
www.twmperformance.com I think is the site), but I think there might be other companies that make them still. If you get one, definitely get the poly bushings they sell for the shifter as well. It'll totally change the way your gearshift feels, making it nice, solid, and firm, with short shifter throws. I've gone all over the place with mods for my car, and the short shifter was one of my first and one of my favorites. The short shifters cost from 100-150USD last I checked.
If you want to work on the handling department, a set of lowering springs will set you back 200 or so USD and make a dramatic change in the way the car drives. If you are worried about the change in ride quality that stiffer springs will give you, then you can still upgrade the rear sway bar (I bought mine used for 50 dollars, it's the one that came from Mazda on the Mazdaspeed Protege).
As for making the car faster, it's a big money pit hehe. Without turboing the car, you'd have to spend a few thousand dollars just to sorta almost maybe feel a difference. If I had to do it again, I'd go at it in this order (knowing now what did and didn't actually make a difference)
- Protege MP3 ECU (requires that you use 91 or 93 octane fuel, but gives a pretty nice performance boost). They are hard to find, but if you do find one, they usually sell for $250USD.
- an exhaust.. a full exhaust can easily set you back 1000 dollars (USD again, I'm too tired to do all the conversions right now) when you consider the price of a header, a midpipe, and a catback exhaust. I have a midpipe (with cat), the Racing Beat catback (nice mellow and quiet sound), and well I don't have a header anymore because I'm turboed.
.. yeah there's just so much to be said. check around in the Protege5 main section, there's probably a mod guide stickied in there somewhere. I wish there was as much information on here when I joined as there is now, I would have saved a
lot of money in modification costs haha.
If you want to browse around for some fun new parts, check out
www.protegegarage.com, they have a great selection and awesome prices, plus the guy who runs the site is really active on here and always helpful.
Another good site for really any Mazda is
www.corksport.com. They have a big selection of parts, anything you could think of they probably have on there somewhere.
But I did have fun doing it and meant some great guys also! 
