(from a former 2003 lancer es owner)

Just save the money or put it towards bills. An ebay intake is all i recommend, anything else is a waste. springs are unnecessary unless u care about the look that bad cause i doubt you really need any serious handling upgrades. maybe a sound system? cause those 2 things is all i did to mine, the rest i saved towards getting my EVO. I quickly realized after reading here on EVOM that even after serious money the poor little lancer was just not meant to be much more than a Daily driver (which its good at). And since i see you care about the warranty don't start messing with the engine.

 

LoL, it must be the fall weather or something because you all sound depressing.

I'm a modest person and I prolly spent like 300 total on a OBX header and a cold air intake. I absolutely LOVE the way the car drives now....so much that I'm sad every time I have to get out of the car. Was it worth it? Hell ya, in my own opinion. For someone to say, "Oh you won't feel anything different", is plain BS. They are prolly saying that because they are expecting too much out of the Lancer. Sooooo

What I recommend is keeping an eye out on ebay and else where for parts you would like for your lancer. For me I have had my car almost 4 years and I did a CAI a year ago followed by a OBX header just recently. I'm a super shopper.
I didn't see what year of Lancer you had but if it's a 03-06 you can get an adapter for the MAF sensor and just strap a cone filter of your choice to that adapter. Some adapters come with a filter but I just bought an Amsoil Nanofiber because I wanted something that lasted and was higher quality. Also by accident I found an OBX header and got it for like 70-80 bucks shipped from ebay.

However the single best thing you can do for your lancer is put some synthetic in there as I did. I put Amsoil in the car and that alone will give you a slicker running car.

 

Have you ever actually dynoed your car? It's amazing how powerful the placebo effect can be, make a car louder or spend money on it and you'll swear you gained power even if you didn't. I can attest to this, I once thought my Lancer was pretty fast until I came face to face with hard facts stating otherwise. It isn't BS to say you won't notice anything, it's based on hard data. I had thousands into my motor and gained around 5 HP while losing 3 ft-lbs of torque. The 5 HP gain was at a high RPM. Moreover, 5 HP isn't enough to notice on a Lancer.
I really don't see why people are shocked to hear that their Lancer won't be a speed demon. It was designed by Mitsubishi to be an economical but fun daily driver, nothing more. It's not an Evo, it's not a Mustang, it's not an S2000, it's a car you drive to get from A to B. You can mod a Lancer (especially the 2008+) to be a damn good looking car but a race car it is not. This isn't a bad thing either. The more power you have, the more money you have to spend on the little things. Gas is more expensive and you go through it faster, you pay more on maintenance to keep everything running right, additional mods are more expensive, you eat tires and brakes, etc. The grass is always greener on the other side. To help put it into perspective, I want a Miata as a second car.

 

ew a miata over a s2k?^

 

More or less it's about "opening" the car up versus actual HP gained in the process.

For example, my dad has an '03 Honda Civic AT. Before he put on a new intake you would be lucky to get the car to climb over 4-5K RPMs. Now with the short ram you can get the car to charge up to redline (7K). Similar results happened with my car.

My point is that whether there are actual horses gained isn't necessarily important but how the car feels/drives is more important.

 

Can't afford an S2000 at the moment.

 

"Opening" the car up is about HP gains, they are not separate ideas. If you couldn't get the revs over 5000 RPM, there was something wrong with your car. If it was fixed by an intake I suspect your stock panel filter was clogged. Unless you're tuning the car, you need HP or torque changes to affect how the car feels or drives, at least if you want real differences not the previously mentioned placebo effect.

 

+1 i regret wasting money on the GTS, it was a good car and all but in the end i should have put the money towards the evo, mods on a GTS just devalue it at trade in

 

It's an automatic (AT) tranny so unless you can select gears with the gear selector you are going to have a hard time overcoming the computer when it wants to shift at specified times.

A car is going to move faster period if it's shifted at a higher RPM vs. shifting at a lower RPM. That has nothing to do with gaining more HP but how much you open/rev the engine up.

 

An intake cannot have that effect unless it gains you power. An automatic won't suddenly shift different because you attach a non-power adding intake to it. I suspect the reason is either A. the panel filter was clogged or B. your driving style has changed/you reset the ECU when you installed the intake.

 

If you've seen the design of the stock airbox on a 2003 Honda Civic you will know that the opening to the intake is literally an inch from sheet metal...so your telling me that you wont notice a difference when the engine is getting more air. Not to mention that the little amount of air that gets in the airbox travels about a foot just to get into the engine. Mmmk.

Placebo effect is overrated when used out of the proper context and needs to be left to the medical community.

 

You can provide an engine with as much air as humanly possible but if it can't use it, it's useless. The 4G94 engine is already running rather efficiently meaning allowing it to take in more air is pointless, it can't do anything with that air anyways. It's the equivalent of providing a kid with more food to eat if it's already full, pointless. As I said, I had every bolt-on imaginable and saw very little gains. That intake maybe gave you 1 HP and that's me being very very nice.
The placebo effect is actually applicable to any field in which humans are involved. In this case, the "gains" you're claiming are likely purely placebo in nature, ie. the car sounds louder thus you think it is faster.

 

burn it.

 

Just as a side note you probably should inform RRM that you have numbers stating that they are selling the placebo effect in the form of performance parts.

Well....you can inform any manufacturer in that respect...OBX, Magnaflow, etc.

 

I posted my results 2 years ago and even talked to RRM about it, they weren't surprised. Manufacturers will manufacturer whatever they think people will buy not necessarily what they think the public/car needs. My numbers aren't new either, people before and after me had similar mods and posted similar results. Moreover, the parts they make work very well once you're turbocharged.