Vitos RD350 crankshaft

[rodneya]

Tiawan may be capable of excellent products, and the castings may look good. But it is not the casting that is going to fail. The cranks come with low quality bearings that have a history of failures. On a low power stock engine that doesn't get thrashed you may be fine

If you are going to run one, go in with your eyes open and know what you are buying. Dont think it is from a company with a good name in Banshee parts. At a bare minimum I would swap out the outer and small end bearings for something decent.

[m in sc]

have you personally split an aircooled rd crank from there? not a banshee one, but an rd one?

i can tell you that the crank i have is sitting under a chuck-q ported drag top end and hasn't been an issue in 3+ years.   

to your point: i have seen some real shit out of vitos as well, but not on the rd cranks from anyone i've heard with direct experience.

[RMRD]

Another Vito's crank user here.
I bought mine in Jan 2017, installed in March of that year.
I now have 7619 miles on it in my '75 with porting, pipes, carbs.   
All street riding, highway and city... including 500 miles beating the hell out of it at the gap last year.
Time bomb?   Who knows.  Will certainly post again if something newsworthy develops, as I too had lots of concerns about these at the time I purchased.  The info will be valuable.

[SoCal250]

Wow never knew there were so many Vito's RD cranks in use by our members.

[Dvsrd]

At least that Vitos crank has the advantage of not having any lead weights that can come loose.

[Djg8493]

I can vouch for the Taiwanese manufacturing capabilities, even on the bearings.  I have personally spend a ton of time auditing automotive parts manufacturing facilities all over Asia and Taiwan has some of the best capabilities.  Sure they are not always perfect but if you are at all familiar with the culture there they are very proud people and have a much different approach to manufacturing than the other parts of Asia. 

[m in sc]

^ agreed. Vietnam in some areas as well.   

[Hawaii-Mike]

I agree about Taiwanese products being of high quality.  An example is the replacement brake master cylinders for Kawasaki's on e-bay and many other sites.  They generally cost about $50-$60 bucks and look similar to the originals.  I grew tired of rebuilding master cylinders and sometimes they didn't work right after my rebuild.

That said, I recently bought one of Evans Ward's refurbished original Kawasaki master cylinders and it looks great for a good price.

[teazer]

I fitted one to a high HP 350 a couple of years back and was pleasantly surprised at how nice it looked.  Not that looking nice is exactly an engineering evaluation, but I was pleasantly surprised by the quality.

At the price, it's great value compared to rebuilding an old crank. Wish they did a 64mm stoke version though.... I'd rebuild a 400 crank if I had to but that's only 62mm stroke and I need a longer (+10mm) for a project and I don't want to machine the crankcases any more than I have to. ...

[dgorms]

I hear the same complaints about "Yambits" stuff! I , personally have been satisfied with 99% of the parts I have received from them. Never dealt with Vitos, but have heard a lot of people dissing them without firsthand knowledge, " he said, they said, I heard, don't do this, blah blah blah............................D