I arranged to meet Chrisjs84 who offered to show me his newly acquired 185 Kit, I had already very briefly met him at Evans when he came to pick his car up after fitting, in fact I was in the workshop and playing tunes on his throttle whilst it was having the cams run in.

We were meeting at 1.30pm at Galgate, I left work at 12.30 and got stuck in the usual queues on the A6 at Broughton after turning off the M55, Mountune eventually powered me to arriving at 1.31pm where a shiny red ST was parked on the Stork Pub Car Park together with recently colour coded fogs and reflectors, I arrived with bird plop on mine from work.

Our test roads were the well known pan flat quiet Cockeram and Pilling sands, long long straight roads as far as the eye can see with just a few curves and some tighter bends, well loved by the motorbikers.

We did quite a few laps out and back and had a drive of each others cars, we tried really hard to spot the differences, they were there but much less so than we both thought, very interesting indeed.

If it was a fight it would have been a fair fight.


I will let Chris tell you about mine, I gave him permission to just floor it in 2nd, he didn't blink and planted it

The 185, obviously his exhaust is yet to soot up and quieten more but it sounded really well, not louder than mine, in fact my car was more raspy, I have the original MT system whereas Chris showed me paperwork stating his was Piper, may actually have been quieter than mine low down, perhaps the cams are working less then mine. There was extended pops over mine , but these can be controlled anyway. We tested in different gears and at different speeds and from low down too. The 185 while initially doesn't quite zip away like mine it does have a noticeable surge at 3000rpm, here even though it is putting out less than mine it does pull harder, if you look at the torque graphs this is very clearly shown in the very steep incline curve at 3000rpm. It seemed to love doing this in any gear around those revs, from 50mph in fifth where I know mine is on full song, the 185 seemed very similar, bear in mind we were 2up and half tank of petrol, nothing in it here I would say. If you let the 185 fly in 3rd or 4th it takes off and just goes and goes, we didn't even go much beyond 5000rpm, in fact 4th seemed it's favourite gear and it just flew instantly . It was also fine to drive at 30mph in fifth, okay with an approaching little steep hill it can bog a little but you would just approach a bit quicker whereas mine wouldn't complain, it still pulled on the flat quite well from 5th.

Overall the 185 was very smooth in any gear, it fired up and idled well too, the 165 is just even smoother to drive but not at all meaning the 185 is not smooth.

I wanted to come away with clear knowledge that the 185 performed noticeably less so than mine across certain power bands and gears but this was just not clearly the case at all.

It was great to meet Chris again, many thanks for meeting me, I will leave you to report on mine.

Question for everyone, Chris is on Eibach, I am on standard, he also has different front tyres, his steering was so much lighter than mine, my steering is quiet heavy, always has been and I like it this way, checked my tires when I got home and fronts were 29.5, have now put them back to 32. Any reason for steering weight to change with springs or shocks ?

Steve

Interesting stuff there, nice pics too

An interesting read, thanks for taking the time to do it for us.

Good write-up

Thats a great little review Steve. Thankd for taking the time to type it all up

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Any reason for steering weight to change with springs or shocks ?

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Strange that lowering made it lighter. My zs when that was lowered the steering got heavier.

Nice one Steve

Those roads you mentioned are great to have a little blast along

Nice write up

so will you be going for the 185 now steve

good write up you have there. i woulda liked to have a go in a 166 and 185 before i got mine done but im glad i went for the full 185 in the end

well I will need to test 185ponies somewhere

Unfortunately it's rumoured that, despite my mods and upcoming remap, I won't make more than 180 without cams

Though I'll be finding out what I do have as soon as I can after the map so will let you know...

If not I'd definitely pop along if you find another local test subject

Steve has already mentioned we met up on Friday for a mini meet to compare our Mountune kits. I was quite intrigued by the 165 kit because I wanted to find out if there was such a difference between the two kits low down something that really worried me before I thought what the hell and went for the 185.

Anyway… the time came. I arrived first and waited to hear Steve coming, and sure enough a very shiny PB ST purred into the car park at the Stork. The car looked and sounded great apart from it taking a hit from two rebellious birds which napalmed his rear arch and boot lol. On the outside both cars looked fantastic however, then Steve opened up his bonnet and WOW it really is immaculate, that is still on my to do list (mine was a little dirty to say the least.)

Ok the driving… First we went for a blast in mine (see Steve’s post above) and then we did the same route in Steve’s.

When I first fired up Steve’s immediately I notice a lower idle which was much smoother and a really nice deeper burble to the exhaust whereas mine is a little more raspy yet because it has not carboned up. The 165 kit is much smoother lower down and much more predictable, I like the way it drives very similar to a standard car i.e idle and pulling away but then when you need that little bit extra it really is there. The standard car can feel quite flat when in 5th doing 30 but the 165 picks up very well and without thinking you will soon be at 50 and then the exhaust enters the mix and on a crest of noise you start hurtling towards 70…. and then you run out of road or you see an empty police car parked in a picnic site?

The 165 kit is a fantastic all rounder in any gear it picks up very well with little hesitation. When you boot it in second it pulls very well and really only starts to run out of steam at about 5000rpm, obviously the 185 kits just keeps going past this all the way to 7000 if you dare lol. Perhaps the 185 does have a bigger kick as it hits 3500 -4000 when the cams come in, but by no means is the 165 kit a slouch.

To summarise, which kit to choose?

To be honest it depends on where and how you drive. The 185 kit can be thirsty to live with, it really does not like traffic and it can be quite depressing watching your fuel gauge dip as you are crawling in stop start traffic. However, on a long run driven sensibly you can get 40mpg which is pretty good. But, if you are totally honest you don’t buy this kit to drive carefully all the time. A little compromise in economy is a small price to pay for the big gains in drama and excitement he kit brings to the car. The performance is brilliant and really does get the adrenalin going, drop it into 2nd 3500 rpm and floor it and the car takes of like a rocket! The noise and the pops and bangs are addictive and leaving the window open becomes a habit.

Having only really driven the 165 kit for a short run obviously I cannot express any opinions on fuel etc but Steve did say that the economy is pretty good and day to day back and forth to work etc he very rarely drops below 36mpg. I imagine on a long run driven carefully he will certainly gain 40+mpg. Whereas stuck in traffic you will be lucky to see 25mpg from the 185 kit. The 165 kit is very happy around town and loves to be given a boot full too, it kind of has 85%of the excitement of the 185 with the noise etc but no drawbacks that I can see!

The torque between the two kits is quite similar and I think the 185 only really loses out really low down ie 2000rpm and below and on steep hills in 5th.

The afternoon proved quite interesting and I think has given Steve something to think about! I am really happy with the 185 kit it has really brought back the excitement to driving the car again and you cannot get enough of the exhaust!

Anyhow I have babbled on for long enough now! Cheers for letting me drive your car Steve, it really did prove interesting.

Chris

Great write ups Really good reviews of the 2 kits there, you need to meet up with dan when he gets the 200