750 to 810 rebuild...Brand new header installation...Just not happening.

I purchased a new V&H exhaust that's supposed to fit a '80-'82 KZ750. It seems to fit fine ...until I slide the collars up onto the studs. At that point, the pipes are not centered as they come through the collars and it is impossible to push the collars on far enough to get the nuts screwed on. It seems like the only way to make it work would be to bend the studs (probably not a good idea).

I thought maybe I had bent the studs when I had the head off for a valve job. But I tried fitting the stock exhaust on it and it fit fine which makes me think the studs aren't bent.

I'm stumped.

now I'm wondering if the split keepers are too long. anyone have this problem?

I had a problem once with split keerpers that were too short. (Marving exhaust)

Maybe you can compare (and measure) your new exhaust to your old (standard?) exhaust?
You should compare the spacing and probably measure the piece of the headers that slides into the head.

If the spacing is off, you may be able to bend the pipes slightly, but it shouldn't be off more than a few mm's.

Here's a pic of the differences between my standard exhaust (on the left) and the Marving (on the right):


I ended up making my own splitkeepers out of a piece of pipe.

IIRC the 750's all used the much shorter split keepers so you should be ok there. I'm wondering if you might still have the old crush gaskets still in the head. I have seen this before where the old gaskets were not removed prior to installing new ones. Usually you have to pry the old ones out with a screwdriver. Just something to check I've found out the hard way several times to never trust the work of a PO.

The pipes fit up to the head nicely. I think I just need to cut down the split kepers.

I just called vance and hines and they said I had the wrong model. All over the place the '80-'82 kz750 model is advertized as fitting the gpz750 but V&H said there was a gpz specific model that has been discontinued. That's really annoying:angry:

Any tips on how to measure to get the right length keepers?

I should add; my stock keepers are way too short.