my only mod is a k&n sri and on my first week everything is fine. today when i was driving on my way to school, my car feels heavy and i need to floor on the gas pedal. i tried to reset the ecu twice and its still sluggish.

 

changing the air box without a tune is no good it will make your car rune like **** there is tunes of posts on this subject check them out

 

our cars are just slow... you really don't have to tune an sri..

 

maybe your sucking up hot air?
Build some type of heat shield.

 

Did you check your plugs?

 

sorry to be a newbie... but what are plugs
EDIT: spark plugs?????

 

how long did you give the car to relearn before resetting it again?
the ECU needs at least 200 miles to relearn everything. During which time the car will feel sluggish

and yes, check your spark plugs. How many miles on your car? You may need a tune up.

 

a lot 123k and its sucking way too hot air that it melted the adapter. i dont think i can put a heat shield here coz space is tight. maybe ill buy a smaller filter so that i can put a heat shield.
EDIT: my first relearn is about 134 miles. then being a noob i reset it again and only about 23 miles on my second relearn so far since yesterday.

look:

 

if it's melting than you need to replace it. get your stock Intake funnel, then pick up a MAF adapter from autozone or ebay. then slap on a K&N filter. It'll only cost $10 and you can keep the air filter in a better location.

saying that. hot air won't make any performance difference on the lancer. You can suck in air from a fire and it won't make the car any slower than it already is.

from the looks of that pic though, you could be sucking in un-filtered air. So pull off your intake and clean out the throttle body and intake manifold, with some throttle body cleaner. Get rid of the sludge.

Also, go to autozone and buy some seafoam and run it through your engine. It'll clean out your entire engine. And at 123K miles you probably need that.
Also change your spark plugs, and ignition wires.

Are you automatic or manual? if you are an automatic than you probably need a transmission flush. It's easy to do, and new transmission fluid is like $30 from the dealership

 

What crypto said. BTW, you can go onto K&N's website and order a smaller sized cone filter.

 

i already took it to a mechanic but idk if they cleaned the engine, intake manifold and throttle body. all i know is they did a trans flush.
my car is auto btw.

 

you don't know what they did? You should always know what a mechanic is doing to your car. Check your receipt and see what they messed with.

If they didn't clean the engine out, then have them run some seafoam through it. Also, replace the stuff i already mentioned.

 

found the receipt and nope they didn't clean the engine..... bad news is they put the wrong oil! are lancers supposed to run on 5-30w oil??

 

yes. that's the correct oil for the lancer.

what have you been using?

 

10-30w. maybe an oil problem?