Ok, I preface this by saying I love the Kerker megaphone exhausts! I wanted one so bad, that I bought a
brand new system before I even had a bike to put it on. I found mine on-sale-on-sale during a black Friday event and paid slightly less then than half of the normal $875+ shipping price. It came in a Kerker/supertrapp box, with instructions, additional hardware and a Kerker/Supertrapp catalog. It was not a knockoff!
That said....it was total shit quality, and I do mean shit! The brand new ones are not made to the same quality as the older units we all know and love from 70's to 90's.
I will explain.
1. I ran the exhaust for not even 10 min and the paint/coating totally crazed over and started flaking off. The bike was not running lean and did not "melt" the coating off as I would suspect if I saw this picture. In fact, the worst damage was not on the header pipes at the head (hottest part) but lower down at the collector. The spots areas where the coating completely flaked off, it started rusting immediately. It was so bad, that I had to have the entire factory coating glass beaded off and repainted.
2. The welds. The welds especially the collector are of the very worst quality. You can see voids, spatter and a generally wonky bead. What you don't see in this picture is the inch of MIG wire sticking out from the weld in the confluence of the header pipes. Is that a bad thing, no, but it speaks to the lack of quality control where ever these are made. The voids in the welds are what really concerned me. I eventually cut up the exhaust and added more upsweep and had the pipe professionally re-welded.
3. The baffle after 10min of running (yes, it never got hot enough to fully burn off the moisture.) was utterly and completely encased in rust after sitting for a couple of days. The perforated core baffle came from the factory as bare steel with zero paint or coating. For $875, the baffles should be made out of stainless steel! I guess they do that on purpose so you will pay them $150-200 for a replacement baffle in two years. I also had to glass- bead the baffle and coat it was well.
4.The little things. The exhaust spit-collars all were poorly stamped and came with "spikes" on the flat surface that compresses the header flange into the exhaust copper gasket. I didn't notice these defects at first and when I bolted the exhaust on for the first time, the spikes deformed the sealing flange to the point they wouldn't seat properly. I had bad exhaust leaks until I hammered the sealing flanges on the header flat and removed the spikes from the split-collars.
I had numerous washer provided and most were missing chunks out of them. Does that make them unusable, again no, but it speaks volumes about the quality of materials and a complete lack of quality control by Kerker. Also, the gauge of metal the system is constructed of is thin! Yes, this makes it light, but you can also dent it by staring at it too hard.
If I had paid full price for this system, I would have been livid! For the MSRP, I was expecting to get a quality made product from an American company that has been respected for ages. What I got, was not that. I paid half and I'm still bitter. I still love the way the exhaust looks and sounds and I understand why you want one so bad. Just beware, as that it may not be as well made as they probably once were.