About two weeks ago I had a very scary thing happen. I was warming up my 450R the night before a dune trip. It was cold, choked, and idling. It dies rather suddenly. I went to kick it over and the kicker was stiff. I shifted through the gears, turned off the ignition and took out the key, and the kicker felt ok. I slowly turned it over a few times, felt ok, so I turned the ignition back on and started it. It fired up and ran for 20 seconds.Then it died again. Now the kicker is stiff as a board. I started checking everything and eventually got the top end off, the kicker, and clutch to isolate the crank and counterbalander. It was definetly the crank or counterbalancer.

I split the cases, and to my surprise, as soon as I broke the bolts the crank turned freely. As I got it apart, I realized that there was a piece of metal stuck to the side fo the crank and that caused it to bind on the case. It took a while to figure out where that chunk came from, but the crank was actually coming apart in flakes. There was another piece about to come off.


I called Mark Baldwin Monday morning, and he had never heard of any crank problems. He told me that he would call Honda and make sure I was taken care of , I gave him my serial numbers and dealer info. I must add here that Mark is the man, he will get my first shot on all business from now on.....

I called my dealer, they told me to bring it to them for a look. They said warranty is 6 months, and I have had it for 9 months. I told them I wanted to do the work myself, and they are cool with it. They wanted me to bring in the damaged parts. I brought them in and they called warranty for me. This was a Monday. It took me a few days to get out to the dealer. On Monday afternoon the service manager called me and told me that Honda was covering it all under warranty. Every part, seal, gasket, and even a new piston was on its way. The factory has never seen anything like this, on any 450 (2 or 4 wheeler)On Thursday they called me to tell me all my parts were in. He says to me" Who do you know at Honda Racing?" I said " Mark Baldwin" " "He really made this go fast for you......Keep that contact"

I called Mark Baldwin, and told him thank you very much for helping me out. He said thats what we do...... He told me that more than anything, Honda pays all warranty type claims because they want the parts for inspection. They want me and the next 20,000 customers happy.Customer service , customer service customer service......I really must say Baldwin Motorsports went way out of their way for me, and I really appreciate it.

I just picked up my parts today, the gave me everything brand new. Even out of warranty. I did not pay a penny.

The engine is going back together as a 500 13.5:1, blueprint ported head, Johnson Cam, and will got to K&T Performance's dyno to see what a HRC v Johnson cam does.

Morals of the story:
1. Buy Honda, everything breaks and you want somebody to take care of you.
2. Find a good company to buy your stuff from and remember you get what you pay for, that includes the service AFTER the sale.

 

honda is very good with warrenty, same thing happened to me(but they said i was the first too) haha ohh well i don't care i never payed i thing either and they dealer took it apart and put it back togeather also.

parts that i got, crank,left side case, cylinder, oil pump, oil cooler, piston and rings, and all seals and gaskets, little over $1500 in parts canadian

sure glad i was drivin a honda and not a yamaha cause the parts and labour would not have been covered.

ohh yeah i talked to like 20 or so people on the net also with the same problem, honda covered they also

 

"They want me and the next 20,000 customers happy. Customer service , customer service customer service....."

This is probaby one of the biggest things that sets Honda apart from all other manufactures, and my dealer feels the same way.

Our next ATV, Honda. A Red one with Wings. And we will buy it from Steadmans, in Tooele, Utah.

 

Steadmans it is.
I really have Dave, Larry, and Russ to thank as well.

 

so if people are having these problems did they fix the crank problem yet?

who the hell would buy a honda to risk the crank?

 

The same reason people buy yfz's and risk the dang thing blowing up on them too.

 

It seems all the high reving 450s are prone to crank failures . First cannondales then yamahas,now the honda. It might be time to go the sleeve bearings.

 

maybe...but seriously, when u buy a bike that revs to over 10 grand, u gotta know that ur gonna run into a problem sometime if u constantly rev high. the cannondales weren't balanced properly so they had too much vibration and that's what caused the crank to fail. when u say "the yamahas" what bike/bikes are you talkin about? i haven't heard of ne problems with the yfz except for that one rubber plug that seems to blow out on everybody's bike, lettin oil go everywhere. the other thing to keep in mind is that the yamaha and the honda are just starting their second year in production, you can't expect everything to be perfect when you buy the first year's model. i mean, look at the yfz: bad battery, bad stator, plug that always blows out, and (in my opinion) super stiff suspension. all of these problems seem to be very widespread, where in the 450r the problems i hear of are far more severe (broken crank, cracked frame) yet much more rare. it's a trade off.

 

Cannondale cranks failed because of a bad cage design in their rod bearing. Yes some of the newer ones were not balanced very good causing the cartridge plate bolts to loosen . While looking for a replacement rod bearing we found out a z400 rod bearing fits like a glove and has a better cage/more rollers. Dropping the rev limiter down from almost 12,000 to around 10,400 seems to help also.

We were looking at the yamaha 450 bearing/rod system and found their to be many failures especially when the engines are heavily modded. Some racers are even going back to almost stock to keep them together.

As far as the hondas I dont think I heard of more than 10 crank failures yet .

 

Wistech, what is failing on the crank? Is it stress cracking in the radius and then bang? Flex? What's the deal in your opinion?