Benefits of cold air intake

[jjareds]

So I searched for this first but didn't come up with anything.

I've been thinking of quick modifications I can make to my MK3 98 GTI

One of the more popular suggestions I've received is a cold air intake. What kind of gains and benefits would I see form this? Better gas mileage? Increase in HP? Torque? Would this be sensible first step in increasing horse power? (I always hear "intake, headers, exhaust") Or is there other things I should do before I undertake this kind of modification?

[mcgee9t2]

cai is cheep and can give gains, however normally these gains are after maps etc.

its more of a supporting mod. would expect to feel much difference/any difference to a totally standard car/

[dom]

MK3's aren't easy to get any power out of, there was a thread on here years ago which did back to back dyno runs to compare different intake setups and the one that gave the best gains was the standard airbox smoothed with an uprated filter.

Even then you're only talking a matter of 1-2bhp, on a MK3 it's for noise more than power.