The truth about COld air induction

all my friends and even my local mechanic who also soups up cars in his pass-time believe that a Cold air intake cannot add 10HP....According to my friend Derek you will be lucky if u can even get 3+5 HP...So whats the skinny on this...i need to know the truth before i dump 200+ on a CAI for my Mustang

a CAI will not add much more than 5-10hp at the wheels. it all depends on what sort of air and what sort of flow the stock intake was allowing. the better it flowed the less gain you will see. the claims of 15hp gains are ususally at the crank with free exaust flow. it is more than worth getting a CAI if you are looking to do alot of NA performace to the engine. the more power you make the engine produce the more its going to want to breath and hte more a CAI will bennifit you. by far the gretest bang for buck while keeping it easy bolt on you can get is headers. ive seen cases of 24hp at the crank and 15 at the wheels from headers alone.
all that is fine and dandy a CAI is not worth 200. if you are a good fabricator you can make your own or just buy one for 50 off of ebay and then spring for a better filter. if all you are looking for is easy bolt on performance here is my reccomendation of what to get.

CAI- w/e you can get it for. the tubeing doesnt really matter its all about the filter and where the air is being sucked from

Cat Back Exaust- if you do it yourself as cheap as 300 (if properly done. welded and good muffler(s)...) or if bought as expensive as 1000+ depending on quality of the kit and quality of materials used (of corse all titanium and carbon fiber will be more expensive than stainless steel)

Headers- 200-600

Sensors- 100-400

Tuning Chip- 300-800

It really depends on what engine you're installing it on. Airflow equals power and bigger engines have more airflow. So a smaller engine will see, at the most about 5HP or so from a true cold air intake while a big V8 like the 454, 428, or 426 Hemi might see around 20HP. Also, most of these cold air intakes aren't. If it draws air from under the hood then it isn't. That would be more like a hot air intake and in my opinion is almost just as bad if not worse that a stock intake. What you want is an intake pulling cold air in from the outside like the bumper or the fender. I've even seen people remove a headlight and have the filter stick out there. It just needs to be getting air from somewhere else besides under the hood.

Anyhow, you get my point.

the factory intake on your mustang is already cold air, you won't see any benefits from a "cold air intake" over just removing your intake silencer and getting a K&N.

there have been numerous dyno tests done on 95+ mustangs showing that aftermarket intakes have little to no effect.