India

[RDFL]

https://www.bikesmedia.in/reviews/yamaha-rd350-reincarnated-darkspawn-part-ii.html

[RDryan]

Wow, cool custom bike. I like what he did with the fairing and interesting story about fixing some transporting damage to it. It was only after reading the article that I noticed there isn't a proper exhaust. Maybe that wasn't the focus of it at this point? I bet it must be loud and a hoot to see and hear.

[IR8D8R]

Yamaha transferred the tooling for the RD 350 to India following the 1975 model year.

RD 350's (aka Rajdoot 350...) were the hottest bike in India for many years. Their version had different porting to compensate for poor fuel quality. It was sold in two versions HT (high torque) and LT (Low torque) neither of which matched the North American or European specs.

For some reason the Indians never adopted the common use of aftermarket expansion chambers. You see very modified Indian RD 350's that still have stock pipes. Chambers were generally the first modification people made to 2 stroke bikes in the U.S.

Maybe there were laws that prevented the exhaust from being modified? Maybe our Indian members can enlighten us on this feature. I've looked at a lot of Indian RD photos and stock pipes are far more common than aftermarket. The Thais put chambers on every 2 stroke. It isn't a secret. Maybe the expense was too great? Original prices for expansion chambers in USA was about $150 in '73. In this country it was the cheapest and best mod available.

IR8D8R