Krash Industries Starter Kits

This is my almost 6th month review of the product. This is not a bash nor is it negative feedback. Its a long story and this will be a big thread. This is a discussion and im not looking to start a fire here and I hope the BEST for Krash Industries. Most of my issues at the time had been taken care of personally on the spot by Nick Barton and only good things can be said about him for trying to make the sport more affordable. That being said I feel I made the wrong decision. I had alot of time during my waiting period to do more research and alot of the starter kit was already destined to be removed. As of this point i suspect I have 70-100 hours on the ski. I do not have an hour meter but we ride every weekend.

Ok so first off I would like to say that to my knowledge I purchased the 1st krash stage 2 starter kit stateside. I ordered and paid for the kit April 22 this year. My hull was already state side. It was sent out May 18th and received by me June 1st. Couldnt wait to get it out of the big box and check it out. As soon as it was pulled from the crate I already knew we were gonna have a problem. We removed it and put it in my living room for inspection. I honestly though I got a used Hull. Filthy turf, sand in the hull, scratches all over it, paint chips, a wiseco sticker someone slapped on the bottom, un drilled engine plates and a binding midshaft. Nick compensated me for the issues. I thought it would get better from there.....

STEERING/CONTROLS

I never ran the kavinci handle pole or steering, It was removed and sold off. The holes in the hull are 2.5 inch and the kavinci pole only accepts 2 inch breather tubes. I have 2 friends with predators that have massive water intrusion issues because of this and I wasnt a fan of the quality. I had previously seen 2 steering systems break, the intergrated pole pad foam rip off of one, and the chin pad foam rip off another one. I sold it off and Used a tigercraft pole and my RRP steering to just take care of all of those issues at once. I noticed off the get go that the kavinci pole bracket was very sloppy and to wide to efficiently tighten down on the pole bushings. But I opted to use the pole bracket anyways as wife said NO MORE JETSKIS THIS MONTH!
Fast forward to today im still dealing with that issue and have gotten a brand new kavinci pole bracket from another buddy and it is even wider than this one. The Throttle lever and trim levers are cool looking but kinda sloppy. The first time I pulled the trim on the lake the cable broke. The second time I pulled the trim after replacing the cable the trim lever broke. After about a month the trim cable broke again (shame on skat not krash) The steering cable to this day is working fine . The throttle cable received was about 2 feet to short to go to anything so it went in the garbage.

HULL RELATED

For the record the krash predator is one of the best riding skis in the surf. Its great on the lake and can carve and sub and do all the lame lake stuff that one would do on a NON flatwater ski. The new hulls have a rear scupper and I have yet to have an issue with it at all. It came with bare engine plates and bare intake grate holes. To some if your looking to get in the sport this could be a problem if your not savvy with duct tape and a pair of vice grips. All of the inserts in the pump area, ride plate, intake grate are aluminum plates that are threaded. Ive had to put a few helicoils in and I recommend to new builds you pull everything out and just get it out of the way. Where the exhaust comes out the back of the ski it is starting to separate from the hull and the paint is chipping away around it. The graphics are very fragile. If you sneeze the ski gets a scratch. Its just how it is. Ive learned to deal with it by not caring anymore. After the first surf ride the ratchet for the hood strap was already rust and it was replaced with a maniac one.

EXHAUST

There is no doubt in my mind the Kavinci water box is the BEST fitting BEST sounding box ive seen or heard. A++++ On that end. If your in the market for a new box I suggest you check it out. The Kavinci exhaust hoses are also extremly cool. They are about 19MM thick and i swear the hardest part of my build was getting that damn bpipe to waterbox hose on my pipe. The waterbox to outlet hose has a cool bend to it to go under your carbs and over your battery. Also the same thick material. Havnt had a problem and will run them on all builds.

PUMP

Ohh the pump. where do we start. This spawned alot of frustration. When you spec the pump out against the competitors how could you go wrong. Most of us doing our first builds only have smaller motors and the 11/17 it comes with is a little steep. Unless you wanna go 90mph. After the first ride I ordered a new 7/14 1 week later I removed the pump to change the prop and found that not only was my pump severely not aligned but the pump stator was already broken. Not from something going into the pump but either from a horribly imbalanced prop or a casting flaw. Nothing went into the pump. The prop was perfect in every way and the cracks in the stator continued around the entire ring not just the 2 missing chunks. If something went into the pump there would have been other collateral damage such as scratching on other veins and dings on the prop. I called nick and he sent me another one. When the other one showed up it didn't line up at all with anything. After I put it together with the brand new prop I went to fire the ski and the prop gouged the wear ring. I pulled the pump and removed the alignment dowls. Now the 4 long pump bolts didn't line up with anything and I had to oversize the holes on the reduction nozzle in order to get it all bolted together. The trim ring and steering nozzle have been getting extremely sloppy. So much I can hear them when I ride. The 11/17 prop was also very primative. As it stands right now im in the market for a new pump.

I wish the best for krash and I hope none of you have the issues that I have. At this point once the pump is gone and the pole bracket there is nothing left from the starter kit at all except the steering cable. Its hard to trust the parts as they have just fallen apart over just a short 5 months.

If you have received a kit and have an issue now is the time to speak up. Not to bash but so that the people in charge can see the consumer issues and fix them for the better. Lets move the sport forward.

Scraggly can make you custom bushings.

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Big Kahuna said:

Scraggly can make you custom bushings.

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I had considered that but here the thing. There shouldnt be a problem in the first place LOL everyone pretty much uses the standard tolerences. RRP, Aura, Blowsion, Cold Fusion, ATP, Stock yamaha ect. And how did the other bracket just grow wider lol

when my nozzles get sloppy, I just find an allen bolt with a bigger head and drill out the sloppy hole to that size. to get that kind of slop in that short of time, there must be some serious issue with metal quality, thickness or it started out sloppy and got worse quick. i'm betting its very poor metal casting quality since the vein section grenaded like that. one washer between the bracket and bushing has always worked for me in the past on pole problems

@cam_lg Make sure and give her a good once over before you ride!

Quinc said:

@cam_lg Make sure and give her a good once over before you ride!

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Oh I've given it a thrice over. I'll do a write up at the end of my build thread of all the little things I've ran into.

Thank you for the post!

I'm following in probably a lot of your footsteps with pump issues. I haven't started to work with the pole so I can't comment there. But the pump...oh the pump. I need to update my build thread with recent findings and thoughts.

I agree there really isn't anything out there for the awesome value, however I think I expected a little too much for the price. Hopefully the riding will make it all worth it!

I understand the need for cheaper parts, but I feel the whole Krash/kavinci deal was rushed to market with overseas built junk and that is sad really. I could tell from what I saw on here there would be problems and I feel like this might just be the start of it. As you said not trying to bash, but more disappointed and I didnt even buy anything.

It is the coin you toss being an early adopter sadly.

@Pat Benatar chime in buddy

chixwithtrix said:

It is the coin you toss being an early adopter sadly.

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I would agree with you if Krash was new to the game, but they're not... Hopefully they get their Shyte straightened out, offering a starter kit is a great idea.

Jetfiend said:

I would agree with you if Krash was new to the game, but they're not... Hopefully they get their Shyte straightened out, offering a starter kit is a great idea.

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Their hulls aren't new, but the starter kits are. Not a ton of 50Cals out there either...in comparison at least. From reviews and reports I've read, the hulls are fine overall. Great skis. It's the new starter kit components that are the issue. I couldn't find one review when I ordered mine this Spring, only person who had one was Chris and he is the face of Krash so of course everything would be hunky dory with the kits coming from him.

Sure wish you would have left the pole, steering, bars, grips ect on to give a full review instead of saying " oh my buddies fell apart so mine will do the same" Kind of hard for you to say " I don't have a lot left over" when you just took some of the items off with zero use. Other than that you have opened my eyes on what to be looking for and that is greatly Appreciated !!!! Nobody wants to give bad reviews of people / company's who have good intent but we also don't want to buy crap if somebody could of warned us. After reading your review I do not think at this point it would have changed my mind ( to late anyways LOL ) One thing for sure is they are providing a very good response ( from what I am reading ) in righting the wrongs thus far. Hopefully that trend will continue and they will work out the issues they have thus far.

I don't normally get on here but figured I should shed some more light on our products and particularly on our pump. I just want to start by saying pump veins don't break or wear out from water pressure no matter how much of a bad ass tuner we think we are there are probably 50+ pumps out there in circulation on a variety of engines from 701 to 1200s. Some of which have been on skis for 12+ months. I can't comment on Jons as I don't know there riding area but the only time we have seen issues is when a rider rode up the beach and with a pump full of sand started his ski to clean the pipe out. Now it dosnt just do it from doing it once but over time that sand is so abrasive and forcing through the veins wears the ring out and takes corners off the veins even just riding up the beach were your engine goes from 6000 rpm to stop and a lot of the time it stops is because the sand forcing in between the prop and stator. Best practice if you can is to tote your ski out of the water, saves the bottom of your ski and your wear ring. These aren't a stainless pump and even if they were any flatwater guy will tell you all that sand is taking meat off your prop and getting blow by which is loosing thrust. These are no cheap casting either these are high pressure A356 aluminium heat treated to 500 Brinell hardness which is as good as any Yamaha or Kawasaki casting. Another thing we have found when fitting our pumps is the wearring is made chined dead to 148mm which means it will get on but it's tight!! When your pump is on the bench and all built you should be able to turn the shaft by hand it might be tough as some ares touch on the powder coat but neither the less it turns this is a good thing, it won't put load on your bearings and shaft because after 5 mins at 6000rpm the stainless prop will take off the powder coat and bed in. If you fit the pump to hull and then can't turn it by hand you know you haven't shimmed it properly and you have twisted the pump, the pump must be shimmed to 10thou making sure as you tighten up every bolt it's still spinning. So if your the type of rider that is vigilante about pump and prop wear you will be blown away by the performance of this pump. If you know your hard on gear but don't really care then either take on board it's gunna cost you $200 for a stator and $120 for a wear ring every 12 months which I personally don't think is much. I always use the dirtbike analogy as I think it's the most relevant and everyone on here that rides bikes will get this. If you bought a dirtbike and rode around a paddock and never crashed it would last forever, when you go to the motocross track and start to try and improve your times or ride in the outback and hit things and crash, parts break and wear out it's the nature of what we do if we are pushing limits. In particular if you ride a sand track your going to go through chains a sprockets every 2 rides metal on metal with sand it is no different to the pump but expectations are it's only water and sand. In terms of pole, pole bracket and steerings, pole brackets are a one piece extruded profile so I find it hard to believe one is wider than another and a particular part that there are so many out there now, poles work great haven't had an issue with anything as for the chinpad it's fibreglass no different to any other, you land on it or hit it, it will break. Steering systems we did have some issues with early first run of steerings which we happily warranted or sent out rebuild kits, they are bullet proof now and most riders really notice the difference a micro ovp system makes. To wrap up and I'm happy to answer any more questions but I will say we have a good customer service team in Chris here in the US and Dee in Australia and so many happy stage 2 kit buyers but if you do have an issue please don't hesitate to contact them and we can sort it out in the most reasonable way.

Thank you for chiming in nick. This was not an attempt to bring you down. There is no good way to review somthing without one party getting the short end of the stick. For the record Nick never failed to attempt to take care of my concerns. Moving forard just like the steering systems I have no doubt you will figure out the issues and take care of them accordingly.

When my pole bracket is replaced with something else I will send you both of them for your inspection. One of them is brand new never mounted and is wider than the one I have currently on the ski which is also to wide.

As far as the pump goes what's the explanation for the clear casting flaw where the stator bolts to the wear ring? Have you seen how @chixwithtrix pump showed up? And when you suck a rock or a stick up into a stock pump it chips the vein it doesn't destroy the entire pump. It doesn't leave a prop blade un scathed. And it certainly causes collateral damage throughout.

@Ochocoronas when you pay for something then you start seeing other people's stuff having problems would you deal with it?

Look this isn't what everybody's starter kits are going to do this is what mine did and how I feel. This is NOT a vendetta about Krash. Every single part nick replaced no questions asked no charge. I didn't even have a single thing bolted to the ski and he called me at like 2am Krash time and paypalled me to compensate for all the un boxing issues. This isn't a stab at you nick but I couldn't keep my mouth shut anymore after seeing pictures of all these 50cal builds going south just like mine did.

That's why I said " it's greatly appreciated !!" And " it's not easy writing these kinds of reviews " I am not on either side. I just want the best info to help keep me/Krash owners informed. I will say that the Heilcoils and the hulls/paint being scratched is a concern to me. As far as your pump it's to early to tell for me. Like I also said Krash has been right there willing to right the wrongs. By them posting right after your review confirms my thoughts and makes me feel more comfortable doing business with a company who stands behind what they sell.

Like I keep saying nick really does care about this sport. I don't think the problem is him

Yes, Nick and Chris have been prompt and helpful dealing with some issues.

Bottom line is that it sucks that there are issues in the first place.

BUT

As I've been saying, for the price what can you expect. $8500 for basically everything except an engine. I mean really, no other manufacturer has tried it. Truth is that many people have had good luck with their kits. Krash is doing a lot of good for this small sport.

Quality control needs to be improved. Hell, charge a bit more than $8500! If it means a bettter product I would have paid $1k more to not have to deal with stupid issues. I think a lot was overpromised and now being under delivered. A lot of people jumped on the band wagon and it took longer than expected. I still stand by the fact a lot of us are/were early adopters and the kinks aren't all out yet.

Chris quoted me two months to get my flatwater 50Cal. It took almost triple the time, and at first I was pissed. Pu-issed. Then I had other life things come up and it made me realize it really didn't matter that it took 5 months. It is a toy, and a nice one at that. I could wait. Not saying I'm happy about it, but it is a part of the process. I'd say I'm more unhappy Chris told me 2 months when he most likely knew it would take longer. Just tell me the truth ya know?

There are things I am still unhappy about and in the process of taking care of. But Krash has supported the issues this far with prompt service.

I guess I just want to see Krash up the quality control, even if it means more expensive products. But most of all just be honest.

Better to say 6 months and deliver in 2 than 2 and deliver in 5.

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