I stopped off at Italia moto in Lincoln on my way home from Newark they have a couple of 748/916 bikes in your price range. Top dealer too
Er.. shurely shome mishtake. My 916 Bip which was admittedly a good one, only had Spark carbon cans (not that loud) and it dyno'd at 108bhp - back wheel. Surely the 916 had a few more ponies than the 748 of a similar year? But agree that the difference is in grunt, torque, power delivery. And that is a personal choice, so you need to ride them both if poss. I just can't be arsed to wring the neck of a 748 all day, and when I go out, it tends to be for a few hundred miles. But that's me. Your style might be entirely different. My 916 was totally reliable over 50'000 mms, but then it was serviced expensively by a top dealer (Swiss Superbike champion on several occasions with Ducati). Big miles in day totally feasible - so long as you're quite fit and flexible. After a Bandit 600, either is going to be quite a radical riding experience, you really need a good few miles to appreciate them. These Ducatis are a lot more demanding, and rewarding, to ride.
Just quoting the Haynes Manual 748 bip 98bhp @ 11,000 rpm----748 sps 100bhp @ 11,350 rpm-----916 Strada/Bip 97bhp @ 9,000 rpm-----916 sps 124 bhp @ 9,785 rpm----- 996 Bip 113 bhp @8,500 rpm and 996 sps 123 bhp @ 9,500. Of course the Manual could be wrong. Steve
This sounds like a whole new thread - "Is Haynes manual wrong?". At the risk of thread hijack, if any luminaries wish to shed light on the question...
In the Ducati owners manual for 1998 they claim 97hp for the 748 and 105hp for the 916 but the difference is mostly about the torque of which the larger engine has significantly more. Some prefer the revvier nature of the 748, I don't. See if you can blag a ride on both...
I'm not sure of the relevance but I recently had my 748E 2002 dyno'd (22k on the clock) and she put out 93rwhp and 51ftlb torque with only a term half system and a JHP chip so that may give an indication of what to expect...
