Rosten rods - mass?

Hi all,

I've now got my Rosten rods through for my non-PD AFN engine

The masses without bolts are:

515g
514g
515g
515g

and with bolts (18g each) are

551g
550g
551g
550g

I thought these were 575g +/- 1g?
Also someone else weighed theirs at ~560g?

The non-PD have a smaller big end, so I assume the non-PD's must be lighter than the PDs - that might be why

Darkside just quotes 575g for both types of rods.

Too bad you bought them from Darkside. I had a friend by a set from Darkside and then a cheap set of china rods from eBay and the were IDENTICAL down to the machine marks and packaging.

I got them for £400 delivered so not too bad
There are some funny marks on the bore of each where the pin goes through which I'll post up here for comment
Were the Chinese ones all within 1 gram and come with ARP bolts and lube?

Also, two parts can look the same but one could be made from cheese. Heat treat spec etc all the same? bore tolerances the same? Lets face it, there are loads of bad copies of everything these days, and they look identical but dont perform the same.

The other brand is still £250 anyway? so not that much less.

Rosten posts on this forum, he must know whether he supplies to darkside....

And probably the weight of the rods...

And if you add rod bearings wont that get you to 570g?

I have made in china H-beam rods they are very well made and weight tollarance of 1 gram.
3/8 rod bolts.

http://www.cxracing.com/mm5/merchan...oduct_Code=ROD-VW-144-26x4&Category_Code=ENGP

These say 5/16" bolts?

They are cheap!

Mk1-83 are you usig your cheap rods above 500nm?

What's Rostens username on here?

Jep around 500 nm and 5700 rpm arp 2000 3/8 rod bolts I got them from turbo johan

G60ING said:

Too bad you bought them from Darkside. I had a friend by a set from Darkside and then a cheap set of china rods from eBay and the were IDENTICAL down to the machine marks and packaging.

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Hold on now, all our stuff is from Rosten i can 100% guarantee so please be careful what you say!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can have Geir vouch for that, we order very often from him and would never pass of Chinese parts as his, thats slander!!!!!! Never had a problem with his parts and his customer service perfect so why would i look elsewhere?

Ben never shipped them back and any more forum crap and i'll not accept them back at all! Get your facts straight!

Ryanp, You need to re-read this thread
No one has questioned whether darkside sell rosten fakes.
I've bought rostens from darkside
Someone said they bought rostens from darkside, then some chinese alternatives from elsewhere and visually they look identical.
I didn't start this discussion on the comparison
I've defended rostens so far and questioned the integrity of the Chinese options

Ben, its another Ben from the States who said this, sorry for confusion!! It just happened to be your topic that people are talking crap!

ryanp said:

Hold on now, all our stuff is from Rosten i can 100% guarantee so please be careful what you say!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can have Geir vouch for that, we order very often from him and would never pass of Chinese parts as his, thats slander!!!!!! Never had a problem with his parts and his customer service perfect so why would i look elsewhere?

Ben never shipped them back and any more forum crap and i'll not accept them back at all! Get your facts straight!

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Hey Ryan, I am just a disinterested reader of this thread. But I have watched the thread since post #2 went up. So I have seen it evolve.

I never thought this was about "Does Darkside sell knockoff rods under Rosten label?" Rather, what I read was "Look what I found. Seems to be a supplier in China who sells rods to Rosten also sells the same rods to Ebay Seller XX."

Just what I thought as the thread evolved. Take it for what ever it may be worth.

thats the way I took it as well

Woah! This is not cool. The rods I received from Ryan were in a box with Rosten instructions and a Rosten business card taped to the outside. Ryan is an EXCELLENT vendor and every order has been shipped quick, packed well, and filled correctly. The Rosten rods are recognizable via the screen printing on the big end. They were shipped out this week VIA USPS. You should have them by early next week.

ryanp said:

Hold on now, all our stuff is from Rosten i can 100% guarantee so please be careful what you say!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can have Geir vouch for that, we order very often from him and would never pass of Chinese parts as his, thats slander!!!!!! Never had a problem with his parts and his customer service perfect so why would i look elsewhere?
Ben never shipped them back and any more forum crap and i'll not accept them back at all! Get your facts straight!

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See below for CXracing rods already installed on the pistons and the screenprinting. I ordered and have in my possession a second set of CXracing rods I will be installing in a second motor I am building.


This is the Rosten screenprinting.

The packaging has looked like picture above for the last couple years.
Before that they did not have the big stamp on the outside and box was a little different.
I have only seen one set of "eBay" rods before and those were different with 3/8 bolts and a wider beam section.
I have nothing to hide and surely not Ryan,he only resells my rods.
But it seems like I have to make a phone call
to Japan tomorrow morning.......

Not sure if I would want to trust a china part that, if fails, will do a LOT of damage. PD rods are a decent upgrade for VE engines and I would trust them way more than no-name china rods.

I definitely think there may be a problem with supply lines as these rods were indistinguishable. I look forward to hearing how this ends, hopefully you will have some data as to the performance advantages of the Rosten brand rods. It is interesting to hear that Japanese metallurgy and machinists are better than the Chinese. Same tooling marks, finish, weights, and boxes. It is amazing that they could be duplicated so accurately. Kudos to Geir for bubble wrapping his rods to prevent shipping damage. The set of 5/16" ARP hardware pictured in the CXRacing rods I took from a set of Max Speeding brand rods (53.7mm Big end) that will end up in a CR build. Max Speeding rods are identical to the CXRacing models other than the larger BE and larger price with a UK conversion. I confirmed with ARP that they are genuine and the lot number matches a batch made late last year.

The CXRacing 50.6mm ALH/AHU with PD taper rods are listed on eBay for $220 USD or best offer shipped. The first set they sold for $180 shipped and the second set $210 shipped. Neither included rod bolts which I had to buy separately for $63 shipped ARP#200-6210. Bringing the cost of two sets of rods with ARP bolts to $514.00 USD shipped.

The Rostens cost $643 USD not including shipping from the UK. I originally ordered the Rostens for the "good" motor I was building and the CXracing rods for the "cheap" motor. I was quite dismayed when they showed up and were indistinguishable except for the hefty price difference.

The pictures are how they came out of the boxes. One set has a bit of residual packing oil that is noticeable in some shots. I tried a flash to maybe highlight some texture differences without any luck.

That price is less than i pay for a set.
I have not been to the factory since 2010,i saw myself back then that they made TDI rods for me.
I made plastic models back in 2005 or 2006 for test fit and i also made the drawings.
No doubt these rods has been copied later on,but i have no good explanation why these rods look identical with packaging and all.
I hope to get a good answer on that tomorrow.....

chances are the factory that is making your rods is also making the knockoffs. same rods, same box, same factory. Different price. I have no doubt that this happens with many products.
The problem with outsourcing manufacturing overseas is that once it is not done in house you lose control of what happens with your design and ideas.

Any updates I'm curious to see the outcome on this...

After several phone calls yesterday i finally reached my contact at the factory today.
Well,it started out as a normal conversation but ended somewhat different...
This is how the conversation went pretty much
My first question was how it was possible that someone bought rods from ebay that appear to look identical with packaging and all.

He said that it was probably one of his Chinese customers that sold these.
Ok,First of all how can a Chinese customer sell these on ebay for less Money than i pay for them even though i order in decent quantity
Second of all why are this Chinese customer allowed to buy these rods that i "designed"

He said,i make only small orders only a few hundred rods at a time.
The Chinese Company order in several thousands a time and quantity means lower price i was explained....

So,from there on the conversation went really bad.
He mentioned that there was a few Companies from China/Taiwan who ordered rods,but he was not willing to give any details
If these a''holes are not happy with "just a few hundred" rods pr order,then screw them.
I am 100% done with them

wow so the company how make youre designed rods sells thousands of them to china/taiwan
same rods only cheaper.

mk1-83 said:

wow so the company how make youre designed rods sells thousands of them to china/taiwan
same rods only cheaper.

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Probably not thousands of one model,but together with other models they order thousands.
Apparently i did not have any "rights" for that specific TDI rod model even though i did all the leg work to make them fit without any machining to Block/im shaft and so on.
I have considered to quit in this business before,and this situation makes it even more tempting to do something else for a living.

Wow, what a shame but the answer i expected, we have had the same with overseas and Domestic suppliers, there are plenty of people willing to copy/borrow/steal to make a quick ££.

mk3pd said:

Probably not thousands of one model,but together with other models they order thousands.
Apparently i did not have any "rights" for that specific TDI rod model even though i did all the leg work to make them fit without any machining to Block/im shaft and so on.
I have considered to quit in this business before,and this situation makes it even more tempting to do something else for a living.

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Sad, but here we have the very reason it is so difficult for a small, quality vendor to survive. It is US, the potential customers, who are so willing to save a buck that we buy from WalMart to save that $$. Even as we know WalMart is killing the store on Main St. where we received great service for many years.

So does this mean I had best buy a set of rods soon, before the current supply runs out? After that, there will be just Chinese sellers of unknown quality in the marketplace?

Well that really sucks to hear. So the CX racing rods are really Rosten rods.

Typical business for Japanese contractor.
When I worked for (now non-existing) machine tool builder we would quote manufacturing lines for some Japanese companies. This would include complete concept design with some prototype builds. At the end they would take all that information and give that to another (most often Japanese) company to build the line.
After a few of those we refused to even quote the projects.

SkyRyder55 said:

Well that really sucks to hear. So the CX racing rods are really Rosten rods.

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God knows what they are,there are rod factories in China aswell.
But according to the Pictures these looks to be the same as i sell

ryanp said:

Wow, what a shame but the answer i expected, we have had the same with overseas and Domestic suppliers, there are plenty of people willing to copy/borrow/steal to make a quick ££.

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Unfortunately that is wery true.