Aren't Porsche 911's air cooled?

 

The 911's are liquid now but they never were before 300 plus hp with a turbo in an air cooled rear engined car. Not sure how reverse hooks into it not being a true sports quad?
The 400 EX makes up for some overall lack of power by having a great handling package. I guess from the definition given the only one is a Banshee? no reverse no eletric start plenty of power.

 

The 400EX is definitly not the answer to high performance or trail riding. While it is great that Honda made it, they could have do a better job.

 

Look, I know some of you Honda guys are sore on the reverse gear thing (or lack there of) but if you look at the traditional sport quad of the 80's, and most today are still around, they offered reverse. Let's see, Warrior, Mojave, 250X, Quadsport, Polaris Sport 400,(it's a scrambler now, right?)all reverse. Then you had the hi-performance quads, 250Rs, Quadracer 250's & 500's, Tecate 4's, and Banshee's. None of those offered reverse, electric start, nothing, just pretty much the bare minimum you needed. Nowadays we have some big bore quads that fit the role of high performance, DS, Cannondale, Raptor but they are in no way as stripped down as the 80's machines. Then you have the 400EX. It has all the same features as the 300EX but no reverse. But it does not have the features of the hi-performance machines: liquid cooling, larger engine. It doesn't really make it in either catagory.

I agree that it's great that Honda came out with a new sport quad in '99 but they could have done a far better job. I forgot about the Consent Decree and what that did to the sport/hi-performance ATV market but here we are, what, 12yrs later and we still don't have models equal to those of the 80's. Honda was always on the forefront of hi-performance ATV's. From the 185s to ATC 250R to the Fourtrax 250R. Now we have to settle for a 400EX that doesn't work perfectly for a trailrider or a racer/hi-performance rider? I think it's kind of a shame.