Evening.
Some advice or observations will be much appreciated.
I’ve bought a March 2009 registered 2.0L Sport with 17" wheels, LSD and 6-speed gearbox fitted as standard.
Son and me are going to Hill Climb it in the Standard Road Cars class of a Novice Championship. First forays into motorsport and track days.
The previous owner Hill Climbed the car the for the past 12 years, also in a ‘Standard’ class. Running it on the currently fitted Toyo Proxes TR1 tyres skimmed by Demon Tweeks to 4mm.
To give us the best chance of having consistent shared runs on a solid, predictable tyre I’m thinking of changing to un-skimmed Michelin Pilot Sport 5’s and if possible, having the tracking changed to Fast Road Car.
Doe this sound like a sensible plan for a pair of novices? Or are there better choices to be made?
Thanks
Kevin
I have been doing hillclimbs and sprints on and off since 2020 in my unmodified NBFL, and I would recommend before spending any money looking for performance gains run the car as is with the unskimmed tyres and normal suspension to give your self a good base line to see how any modifications improve your times. Because I do not compete that often I find I regularly make 20 to 30 second improvements over the course of a day, if I was regularly making improvements of only 3 or 4 seconds I might start looking at making improvements to the car. Wishing you many smiles on the hills.
Thanks, Art
I’m having the Pilot Sport 5 fitted next week. And as you suggest, I’ll pass on any other ‘fiddling’ till we’ve had a few runs on them.
Get why the previous owner had the skimmed Proxes fitted. He was way more experienced than us and wasn’t sharing the car.
Hope those PS5 are ok. I’ve had them on two other cars (inc one currently) and think they’re very average.
Not what I’ve been told but …
I know. I can only go by my own experience. I listened to many a bloke down the pub before buying them.
Horses for courses. As novice hillclimbers on sometimes cold and wet courses we need something predictable across a range of conditions. I’ll stick with the Pilot 5’s.
Agreed. Your money. You’re choice.
I liked the PS4. Repeated purchase on a few cars. I just think the PS5 is a very regressive tyre in comparison. I get torque steer on a 113hp car with them lol, which didn’t even when it had (prior owner fitted) so-called ditch finder Landsails on it 
