Why don't manufactures try to stay with the group when it comes to power? Example is how can a Honda Rincon 680cc only have 38hp and a Sportsman 570cc have 44hp or a Can Am 570cc have 48hp? If I were the CEO, I would at least try to stay within 5% HP of the competition. Another example is the Yamaha Grizzly 708cc producing only 48hp and the BF750 producing 50hp along with the KQ750 producing 50HP, yet the Can Am 650 produces 62hp.

I know everything isn't about power, but they should be close. In the case of Honda's 680cc Rincon, they are loosing potential buyers because of such a low powered machine.

 

Yes, Honda is losing potential customers, or at least repeat customers in my case. I owned one, and it was a real dog. It never felt like it wanted to even move without straining for every ounce of power it could muster. I think the Honda Rincon wins the award for the all time most disappointing ATV I've ever owned. It had such potential, too bad our dealer would not allow test drives. I would have never bought it. All it took was one ride to say "oh man, this is terrible". We kept if for a year, then sold it.

On some of the horsepower ratings manufacturers are closer together though. A new Can Am Outlander 1000 makes 89 horsepower, and a new Polaris Sportsman 1000 makes 90 horsepower.

 

I have never bought an atv or a utv without a test ride, if your dealer doesn't allow it many others do, just leave and find a good dealer. That said, to answer your question it all depends on how the engine is set up, carb or efi, type of cam etc. Nascar engines are basically 330 cu in or less so how do they produce 850hp where the same engine in a new production auto only puts out 260hp? It pays to test ride so...lessoned learned!

 

"On some of the horsepower ratings manufacturers are closer together though. A new Can Am Outlander 1000 makes 89 horsepower, and a new Polaris Sportsman 1000 makes 90 horsepower." That may be the only engine size where anyone even comes close to the horsepower of Can-Am. I think the Sportsman 1000 gained 1 HP per year for 2 years in a row and squeaked by with 1 more HP than the Can-Am.

For years I've been looking at the HP numbers for Honda and I just shake my head and wonder why they're so weak. I've never considered buying one for that reason. They need to have roughly 150 cc more to equal the power any of the other major brands. My 500 EFI has the same HP as the 680 Rincon. It may be slightly different depending on where you get the numbers from. If you want a Honda with the power of a 350 you better buy a 500. It's ridiculous and I see no reason for it. If their sport quads were the same way I don't think anyone would buy them. A lot of times when I wanted to compare specs for different brands I had a hard time finding Honda's HP, rack capacity, and towing capacity. It's like they're too embarrassed to say.

 

I guess at one time Honda was fairly close to the others. But they all designed and built higher performance engines that generated more power. Other than adding efi, Honda's atv engines are basically unchanged since the early 2000's. The rest of the industry has ran off and left them.

 

The manufactures are required to provide the HP and emission number in California in order to sell there from what I was told.

 

You still have to feed them. Not everyone needs to do a wheelie every time. Torque is as important as hp, imho. But, I'll bet most folks with Hondas are very happy. My 95 year old dad , laments the end of Ford's building the Model A. Some folks loved the 40 hp VW Beetles.

 

If I go to the CARB website I can search and find thousands of posts, each covering one particular quad, but can't find the table that sometimes get posted here with several models on it.

 

This one? I was wondering how the Arctic Cat 700 TRV got 4.3 less hp than the MudPro. I guess it's because of the free flowing intake/snorkel.

 

The Brute Force 650i got several more hp over the other Brute Force 650 as well as I saw on an older chart.