maybe its a power to weight ratio??

anyways, I'll let you know in a week or so...it will be who ever blinks first with me and my buddy on his KQ. He is as retarded as I am (sorry if thats not a PC term, nothing meant by it)

 

brute all the way

 

Just call the dealers n ask.

 

Well i can give some decent info on that. Owned a sportsman, albeit older model but not enough changes to make a big difference, and have ridden with a kq 700 several times. Your gonna hear alot about the handling and ride on the brute, but man im here to tell ya thats just a bunch of nitpicking junk. In real world riding your not gonna be paying that much attention unless your 85yrs old. My old sportsman did ride smoother no doubt, but my 650i is by no means rough riding, i keep a pretty high psi in my rear tires anyway, front suspension is pretty plush. The Kq will handle a little better and ride somewhat a little smoother and is a pretty nice machine. As far as power and racing both the sp and kq will be listening to some Clint Black and "Seein nothin but the tail lights" lol. Folks will tell you the kq will outrun the 650i and 750 brutes but in a real drag it would take from now til the cows make it home to ever catch me considering i hit 70mph on my 650i easy(registers smooth 70 on digi speedo but friend in 04 f150 truck sais i was goin a lil faster when he chased me) and i believe the kq will probably hit around 70-72. Personally i would rather have the 5-speed Vinson 500 than the kq i kinda like it lol. I would love to see some big bore manual trannies....dreams a 800brute v-twin 5speed ...roar.. lol. Overall i definitely give the nod to the Kawasaki, quality is good long been known 2nd only to Honda in many cases. Only thing is i do not give it the full nod on the belt drive DESIGN, that said kawi's have very strong cvts, i just thing they could execute a better format. I liked the belt drive on my Kodiak 450 better. But alas nuff said go brute force go. -Joe

 

I can tell you 1st hand that the KQ goes 75 mph (according to the equiped speedo)... And that's with stock tires with whatever psi the dealer had it at. The machine only had 19 miles on it at the time. 0 to 60 is really fast, but 60 to 70 takes a little longer and 70 to 75 even longer because, I believe, of the CVT windin out. I don't know how that will change as the belt wears and the springs age.

Out on the trail, if the KQ is the most nimble, then it doesn't matter anyway. I was running all over the KQ with my POS 220 bayou. I'd stop to **** n let my buddy get waaaaay ahead so I won't be eatin dust. Then, in no time I was right back on his rear. I'm sure my buddy wasnt "tryin to lose me", but I wasn't trying to catch him either. We was just having fun jumping and sliding curves. But get on a gravel road and he'd lose me without even knowing it. I'm sure the story would be the same no matter which behemoth he was riding.

 

I have raced two KQ700 and neither beat me from the start nor top speed. Yes our top speed was close as I was 71mph and he was 70mph by garmin GPS, but I got there much quicker. That doesn't mean the KQ700 is a bad machine. It is a good one and really for the price. At the Tejas Motorsports in Highlands, Texas they are selling their KQ700's for $6599 OTD. That is a great price for a fuel injected 700.

 

Did you beat the KQ's with the 2005 kawasaki 750 brute force 4x4? That's 50cc bigger.

How come you use GPS when there is a big speedo right on the handlebars (at least I know the KQ has one)? Is there a difference in speed between the speedo and the GPS?

 

the difference is one of them is going to be wrong. The GPS in THEORY is supposedly a little more accurate determinate of speed, but that all depends on if you believe it or not. My GPS actually says i'm going about 2mph slower than the speedo on my 650i. Either way, I'm still having trouble trying to figure out why everyone is so concerned with speed? I mean come on, going 74mph on a brick isn't really all that fun and and it isn't all that safe either. Don't get me wrong, i've hit the 70's quite often, but only when I admittedly am going down a stretch of highway I know I'm not supposed to be on to get to another trail. In real world applications you're NEVER going to go that fast.

 

I agree with that! We just took it down the road that one time just to see how fast it would go and that was that. The last time we rode together I doubt he got it above 50 coz the limiting factor was the slowest quad (ie the bayou) lol. Shoot, 30 - 35 with trees wizzin by n I think I'm flyin.

I never had GPS on a bike, but my car I find it is accurate yet slow. If I change speed suddenly, the GPS take a bit to catch up. So, if you hit 75 on a quad and then let right off it might only show 72 or so.

Why is everyone so concerned with speed???? Braggin rights. Something to talk about. Like sports, if a team wins by one point they're the greatest n the other team sux and is forgotten.

 

You are so correct. I only raced these guys b/c they kept bugging me while we were at an ATV rally. Anyway, the GPS is reading about 3 mph slower than my speedo and one of the kq guys said his was 2mph slower. I have two GPS, one on my Lowrance LMS332c fish finder/depth finder/ GPS unit for my big boat and I have compared it to my hand held one and they read within about 0.3mph of each other.

But, yes, I mostly ride up to about 40mph. If I were buying a new 650 to 800cc quad, pretty much all will do what I would want them to do and they would be extremely fast enough. It would come down to what is my main type of riding and what kind of bargin can I get them. Our local polaris and honda dealers will not come of $50 from the MSRP, so they loose a lot of business. My bf750i (2005) was I believe $7199 MSRP and I paid $6850 OTD with a 4 year extended warrenty. Then I added ITP mudlites (history) and ITP rims for $550.