I am wondering why VT600 community keeps calling the crankshaft dual pin and using as a supporting arguement for saying it will not sound like a Harley.
Correct idle speed, oil pressure, wasted spark system and 45 vs 52 degree between cylinders aside, VT600 seems to have effectively a single-pin crankshaft.
If we google VT600 crank images, we can see that even though the connecting rod journals are separated by a counterweight, they are aligned with each other with no degree of offset.
Just wanted to check if I am wrong and if maybe we should not call it single pin.
When the idle is set is way low (which obviously will destroy the engine) it does actually sound a bit Harley-like due to the crank design. It has 2 quick exhaust pulses followed by a long pause. It is only missing the "to" of potato due to not having a wasted spark ignition.
Please share your toughts!
@Denis Panteleev
The VT600 crankshaft is not a true Harley-style single pin crank, even though it can sound somewhat similar. A true Harley single pin crank has both connecting rods sharing the exact same crank journal centerline. The VT600 uses a split-pin or offset crank pin design where the rod journals are slightly separated from each other by a balancing lobe.
That offset allows Honda to smooth out vibration and improve balance while still keeping some of the uneven firing characteristics that give the bike a lopey V-twin sound. So the VT600 is not technically a true single pin crank, but it was clearly engineered to emulate some of the character of one while being mechanically different.
I cannot find any official Honda terminology where they specifically call the VT600 a “single pin” crankshaft. From an engineering standpoint, it is more accurate to describe it as a split-pin or offset-pin crank design rather than a true single pin crank.
There’s also a lot of confusion online because visually the crankshaft can resemble aspects of a single pin layout, but mechanically the connecting rods are not sharing the same exact crank journal the way a traditional Harley crank does.
As for the Harley lawsuit discussions, Harley-Davidson did spend years trying to trademark the sound of their V-twin engines, and several Japanese manufacturers including Honda opposed that effort. Harley eventually abandoned the trademark attempt. There is no widely accepted evidence that Honda copied Harley’s crankshaft design directly. Honda created their own variation that achieved a similar cruiser sound and feel while using a different engineering approach.
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