The two pistons are huge and thumping so Suzuki had to focus on the details to ensure they didn’t ruin the ride. Peak torque hits at 3,500rpm whereas peak power hits at 4,000rpm so there is little point revving above 5,000rpm as the engine will start lacking after these points. While the Intruder 700 utilised 4 valves per pot the bigger 1400 went with 3. The rear pot oil cooling system required a big oil tank to directly deliver oil to the cylinder, this tank was bigger than the big bore oil tanks of the time. The front pot was air cooled and rear oil cooled, Suzuki could have water-cooled the huge engine but this would have increased the engine size and complexity, required a radiator and increased production costs. This was thanks to low maintenance features that Suzuki implemented including a shaft drive, hydraulic valve adjusters, auto cam-chain tensioners, a sealed battery and car type filter changes. In terms of maintenance the Intruder was ridiculously easy to care for, giving the owner pretty much a free ride in that regard. So the wide ratio between gears, old fashioned four speed gearbox and simple air cooled twin engines, still provided enough momentum to have serious fun on rides, out-performing the best big bore sport bikes in the mid-range. This made the Intruder a pretty awesome road bike with lots of usable power, the mid-range acceleration put it in the same leagues as big 5 speed transmission bikes like the Yamaha V Max and GSX-R1100. However, the Intruder wouldn’t sweat this issue as the power was in the mid-range and from 45mph-75mph with the throttle pinned the Intruder would pull away from the others with ease. There was an important difference though, the Suzuki wasn’t trying to win any races, its benefit was in the torque department, both the Shadow and Vulcan were faster bikes than the Intruder in terms of top speed and peak power. It was a bike pretty much on par with the rest of the competition such as the Honda Shadow, Kawasaki Vulcan and anything coming out of the Harley factory at the time. were not quite yet a thing, so the 70 something horsepower and masses of torque was more than enough to get your pulse racing for a cruiser. Well first of all, we have to put ourselves into the position of when the bike was released which was 1987. The title of ‘Intruder’ followed by 1400 hinting at the capacity gives the impression that this is a serious motorcycle, the big Intruder, an engine full of power that the smaller models couldn’t hold a candle too.
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