First off, I have an 03' Lancer ES. The car is completely stock as far as the engine goes. I was thinking about selling the car and buying an evo (used, like an 03' evo). But the problem with that is on top of the $12,000 or so i would have to borrow to buy the evo, I would also have to get the evo re-painted, get another set of wheels, another carbonfiber hood, another sound system, etc.

So I came to the forum for help!, if I had a budget of say 12-14Gs would I be able to get my 03' lancer es upgraded decently?? This includes whatever I would have to pay to the mechanic. (altho I could probly install an intake, exhaust, etc myself).

One thing to note is my car is an automatic, and Im not to crazy about converting to a manual. I was hoping to get 320+ HP with my budget, keeping the car an automatic.

I would sincerely appreciate any help on what I should do, or what I should upgrade to get my car to the level I want.

The only reason im considering keeping my car is because i dont like manual cars :\, and i also do alot of car shows so the paint and exterior styling is important

 

320hp on an automatic....uhhh...ok...thats not very fun tho is it??
anyway...

i think either way you are going to be spending a heafty amount of cash. is there any reason that you would like to keep the earlier model lancers?

what kind of mods are you looking at doing? or your not sure yet?

i think if you know where to shop, and trust the guys who do the work to do it properly, then i think you could do a decent job on it for 14,000. but i dont think you could get that kind of HP

are you thinking about a new engine altogether? or are you just wanting to add to it?

from what i can recall the 03 ES has somewhere in the area of 120hp. and you want to pull 200more horses? that is going to take a lot of calculating, and be expensive as hell. i think you could do better if your expectations were not so over the top. lets be realistic, to get that kind of true horsepower, without blowing yourself up with half a dozen nitrous bottles, you are basically going to have to build yourself a custom engine. and even at that, the car is not designed for that kind of a beating. the torque that will be thrown off those wheels will do all kinds of stress to that vehicle, which is simply was not built to handle. will it break? nobody knows. can it work? maby...

ive got family who build and race professionally in California, and i know it takes a wad of money to start yanking horsepower out of your engine. it costs them big bucks to pull 2 or 3 horses out of a naturally aspirated engine.

im not trying to talk you out of it, but i just want to make sure at least someone has told you that what your goal is, would take probably more than 14 thousand.