Polaris has made no secret of the fact it does not hold much confidence in the 4-stroke market.
Although that market was last recorded at 25-percent and may be much higher this year with the success of the Viper and Cat 7000, Polaris has stood firm in its conviction that the future of snowmobiling is rooted heavily in 2-stroke development only.
Wethinks they protesteth too much! It’s pretty difficult for any company to walk away from that sized slice of the pie and still be serious about leading the industry.
Here’s the rub: Polaris is already a maker of incredibly good 4-stroke engines, built right on these shores.
These thoroughly modern and potent mills are used in the Polaris RZR side-X-side and one in particular, the new 1000 RZR twin is an absolute blockbuster of power potential.
As of now, in naturally aspirated (EFI) form, this DOHC parallel twin makes 107-hp but because of its large displacement we strongly believe it has the potential to make safe horsepower in the 125 to 130 range (unblown, un-turboed).
If Polaris’ considerable turbocharging experience was applied to this engine we could see it generating power in the upper 160 range, maybe more.
Here’s what we think gives this rumor some weight. Polaris invested in the tooling to build this mill and we think the plan from the beginning included snowmobile adaptation.
This means the crank and bearings have been designed to carry the potential for far more output and the head design was laid out with the plan to adapt the motor to a snowmobile.
Dimensionally, this is a very light and compact twin and just looks like it wants to be under the hood of a Pro-Ride (or some other future Polaris).
Sure, we’re guessing, but we think Polaris has a 4-stroke future and it’s going to start soon!
