I recently stumbled upon it on craigslist. Anyway, the how to link on here doesn't work. i was able to put the lower valence. but I know the top one requires hacking the grill. Is there a way to do this without dropping the whole bumper down? i tried pulling the lock pins on the bottom.,,,pain in the ***.

 

OP, if I were you I'd go ahead and just take the whole bumper off. It's really easy (takes 10, 15 minutes at most) and it will make the whole process go a whole lot faster since you'll have more room to work with.

Remove the grille, splash guards, two bolts by the side markers at each end, and you're set. Work from the back of the bumper cover and you should have a pretty easy time figuring it all out.

I don't have any firsthand experience with this particular grille and valence, but I hope this helps make it a little easier for you.

Edit: I just saw you have an 01 and I have an 03 so the bumpers are a little different with the grille and such (01 isn't removable as far as I know) but it should be the same general process.

 

You definitely don't have to remove the bumper. If you don't plan on ever going back to stock you can just hack that oem grille out of there. The grille is connected to the bumper anyway so if you want to remove the grille completely...you're gonna have to cut.

see sig

 

I once had that product. It can be ziptied incase you ever plan to sell.

Removing the bumper of a 5th gen Maxima is a 5 minute job.