I've always appreciated the classic look and character of the vintage sleds. After about 15 sled transactions (buy&sell) in 3 years I might consider myself a sled nut. However, am realizing one thing different between the Invaders and all other liquid cooled 440's of the day. Invaders do not have any reed valve and still obtain 70+hp. By comparison, all the other high performance LC motors had reed valves (or rotary): SkiDoo Blizzard, Rupp Nitro, Arctic Cat elTigre, Yamaha SRX, Polaris Centurion... Hec, even the larger 500cc motors of the day had reed valves, and the Interceptor did not.
Also, all these other motors had dual pipes.
The Point: All these stock "trail sleds" 440 L/C motors obtained low to mid 70 horsepower with reed valve AND dual pipes. Kawasaki got the same without reed valve and one pipe. So- I am wondering how much more overall power does a reed valve and 2nd pipe create, and can a reed valve assembly be retro fitted to the Invader...?
I know their are many other modifications and combinations. I'm just wondering about the reed valve portion of it.
I guess I'm impressed with what Kawasaki obtained by comparison and wonder why they did not use reed valve and 2nd pipe (in the Invader).
Anybody else ever wonder about this? Or am I the only observant geek in the bunch...?