Technically, they should be called "colder" air intakes, because a "cold air" intake draws ambient air from outside the car as opposed to the warmer air in the engine compartment. I'll ignore the semantics for now.
Many of us have added an aftermarket cold air intake to their Marauders, with the intent of improving performance.
The reason cited is often "because cold air is more dense, and thus if you are tuned for it you can make more power.
What I don't understand is, why is an aftermarket cold air intake so much better than the STOCK cold air intake?
With older cars, the stock air intake (I can never get used to calling the air-piping an "intake." To me, an "intake" is an intake manifold, but I digress) draws air from the engine compartment, so one could improve things by adding a "cold" air intake to draw ambient air.
However, car engineers seem to have learned this, and most cars now have a cold air intake as stock - including the Marauder.
So, what's the improvement? Is the airflow that much better? Is it all the tune improving performance anyway? Does it fool the ECU into causing a rich mixture? Wouldn't the ECU, in closed loop mode, cancel out any changes? (again, if the tune is changed, then it's the tune change that cause the increase)
Do people just like the aftermarket intake because the silencer is removed and it makes more noise?
This question isn't unique to Marauders. I've seen other car forums have great debates about aftermarket CAIs - some say it's a complete waste of money, and have dyno plots showing that the stock air piping is not a performance hindrance at all. Others argue that every little bit helps, and they like the noise.
I notice that there isn't much if any debate here, and I'm not trying to start any, but with limited financial means, one should look for maximum performance per dollar. If the stock CAI is adequate, I can look elsewhere for improvement.