[Darren69]

They all have their faults but all are great bikes and Flips 900 is a flipping ace tasteful example of a modded original M900 if ever there was one, that is the pretty much the benchmark. Naughty number plate aside, lol!

The 1000ie and S2 in both 800 and 1000 versions took the 2 valve motor to the next level with fuel injection which went some way to improve the fueling of the earlier carb bikes which if anything had always suffered from poor fueling (which was both frustrating and annoying) and icing, but can be considered "charm" if that's your thing.

The 1000DS motor from the S2 1000 is considered by most as the best example of the 2 valve air cooled engine but I can't recall if the 1000ie got the DS motor or not. Early 900sie are also worth considering since the early ones are quite high spec and made in small numbers.

Now I can tell you have good taste if you like my S4. The S4, S4R and S4RS are the Monsters with the contemporary SBK 8 valve (Desmoquattro and Testastretta) engines of the day; 916, 996 and 998/999 engines detuned for more midrange torque and general madness. My gently tuned S4 puts out more HP and torque than the 916 sportbike which shares the same engine and the S4RS is somewhere up near to 130bhp and can be made up to 999 SBK power (140 +) fairly easily since they just made the throttle bodies a bit smaller on the monster. That's all irrelevant really since you can't easily ride a monster at that sort of speed anyway, its too much effort to hang on!

It does however make for a relaxed ride at legal speeds, just keeping it ticking over really at close to 80mph!