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Advantages and disadvantages of four cylinders vs. three? I dunno really. All things being equal, including displacement, a four will put out more horsepower. The four should spin higher, because the pistons weigh less. The triple should have a bit more torque, especially down low, since the cylinders are bigger. A bigger triple (or an even bigger twin), should be approximately equal in power, but have very different torque characteristics. A four sounds differeent from a triple. You really need to wind a four to get the most out of it, while a triple doesn't need to be wound out quite as much. To be honest, a 675 behaves as much like a four as you can get with a triple- it revs as high as a TT600 and it doesn't have the same kind of low end torque that a bigger triple has. It does have a torque advantage over four cylinder supersport bikes, including Kawasaki's 636, probably due to a combination of displacement and cylinder size. It doesn't rev as high as the current crop of fours, to the tune of about 1500 to 2000 rpm. The fours get power through revs, with less torque. The triple gets its power through a few less revs but more torque.
I hope this clarifies things a bit. And I agree that I wouldn't take my bike to a shop that didn't know how many cylinders it has!
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