Do this for your first project, go out to radio shack and buy a $10 indoor outdoor digital thermometer, or you you are really spiffy use the temp sensors on a datalogging DMM. While driving compare temperature inside the intake (use one of the breather holes in the accordian) vs the ambient temperature. First on stock then on a "COLD AIR" intake. I believe you will be remarkably surprized by how the cold air kit is anything but.
If you want to take it a step further and know a little about electronics, connect the same dmm to the voltage out on the stock MAF. This will give you a volage proportional to grams of air flowing in.
The biggest surprize is when the numbers from the stock intake beat the numbers from the expensive aftermarket kit. (The temperature kills any reduced restriction) I am sure you learned this in class.
Just a suggestion. Oh and ofcourse this is comparing SVT to aftermarket, the se is too restrictive.
Now to be fair to anyone else reading this I should tell you how to make the aftermarket kit work well. The deal is to always get air from outside the hood and to do it with as little restriction as possible (bigger filter)
Personally I would stick to the cold air intake being worse as professors tend to like to see how the engineers were right in the first place and the aftermarket people are just selling hype. (and packing the hood with dry-ice when they dyno)
The moral: cold air is better, and there is no cold air under the hood.
Good luck on your project
