Mitsubishi: Intake modifications for automatic transmissions, Lancer, Intake

Question
I have a 2003 Mitsu Lancer ES. I want to do an upgrade to the intake starting from the stock "cold air" intake all the back to the manifold. My question is would it be better to go with an after market cold air or to go for a short ram for better results. I am not used to working with automatic transmissions so I don't know if there is going to be a difference at all.

Answer
Don't worry about the fact that you have the auto transmission.  It's not going to affect any of the intake setups.  As far as intakes go either Cold Air or Ram Air... you want to go with a setup that gets the most air from outside the engine bay and the least air from around the engine.  Some kits such as the ones on ebay have a short intake pipe and a circular open air filter.  Although their cheap and may look nice/sound nice - they actually reduce horsepower.  This is because they are sucking in all the superheated air from the engine compartment.  The hotter air makes the combustion less efficient...  The factory intake does a pretty good job with keeping hot air from the engine and thus it performs better than the cheap Pipe+cone filter jobbies they are selling online.

You really want to stick with a bolt on kit specifically designed for the car. An excellent example is the Injen Kit.  It uses factory mounts and clips so its not just flopping around.  It eliminates the stock air-box, and pulls in cool air from below the engine... If it is really low, like within 18" from the ground low, you want to make sure it comes with a splash guard.

Ram air setups are not as common because they require a vent for the forced induction... such as a hood scoop.  The price of such a setup for an intake + hood for about 10-15hp is probably not worth the trouble.  Ram air doesn't produce any HP gain until you're moving 20mph plus...