If you have a VF500F and a full vance and hines system...

...I need your advice big-time.

Issue: I cannot for the life of me get the exhaust on the bike. If I put the two front collars and nuts on and mate it up to the gaskets finger tight, there is no way in hell it looks like it will go on the vertical downtubes on the rear cylinders.

** This system uses (as far as I've been able to find out) the same OEM rear cylinder downtubes, and slides onto them for the connection to the rear two cylinders. Smart design...this keeps one from having to remove the engine in order to install the system. It then bolts right up to the two front cylinders easily, supposedly, from what I can tell. Please tell me if I have any of this wrong.**

So, I can either get it slid onto the rear cylinder downtubes OR attached to the studs on the front cylinders, but not both. And I'm 3-4" away from the front cylinders when it all bolts up to the downtubes. Or I'm not even in line with the downtubes when I bolt it to the front cyclinders.

My best guess is that the rear downtubes need to be loosened up at the head (engine removal?), bolt the exhaust on, then tighten the rear downtubes as far/best as possible.

But this seems like a severe design flaw to me. One, I shouldn't have to to this, and two, I think it would just move my problem of not mating to the cylinders from the front bank to the rear bank without fixing the problem.

I guess I COULD cut/reweld either the whole thing, or just a little 3" section to bridge the gap to the rear downtubes.

PS does the bracket on the pipe that attaches to the footpeg bolt attach to the INSIDE of the peg bracket closest to the chain, or the OUTSIDE (i.e. the bolt goes thru the V&H bracket FIRST, then into the hole for the footpeg?)

PSS Looks like the centerstand will have to be left off, that right? Or weld something to keep it from hitting the chain? Advice? Fotos if you have a centerstand with this system?

 

Got it on. A quick call to the VF500F HQ in Fort Wayne set me straight. Answer: Don't be afraid to grunt on it. A pry bar and a bottle jack are your friends. Use force, it's necessary.

Canisters go on tomorrow (still drying with hi-temp paint) but had to start it with just the headers on:

Oh my. Small block Chevy. NASCAR-nasty sound. Neighbors came outside wondering "who's driving the SPRINT car?" Wish I could get away with it sans pipes. But then again, I got pulled over today (on the VFR750) and was let go with a verbal warning, so I don't wanna push my luck with The Man.

 

Oh...I did get this on, but would still love advice on the other two items:

-centerstand? I'd like to keep it. Anyone got these pipes AND kept the centerstand? Love to hear/see what you did.

-canisters mount to inside or outside of footpeg bolt?

 

Any chance for a few photos detailing the steps for this installation?

 

+1 I have a set of these I haven't installed yet...

 

Well, it's mostly already on so fotos are a bit late. But I can tell you how. It's easy.

REMOVING THE OEM:
Remove the rear OEM mufflers at the clamp right by the footpegs. Slide 'em off to the rear. Easy.

Remove the 4 nuts on the front two pipes from the front two cylinders. Get under the bike and loosen the two clamps on the other end of those front two pipes where they go into the OEM collector box. Take off the clamps if you like, but you probably won't need to. Twist/rotate these two short pipes a bit until they come out of the collector box, and off the front cylinder studs. Add to the pile.

This leaves you with the OEM collector box. Two screws hold it to the bottom of the oil pan. These two screws are on the front of the oil pan towards the front of the bike. Remove them.

This leaves the collector box held to the rear two cylinders via a clamp on each downtube. Do not mess with/unbolt/look at the downtubes where they attach to the two rear heads. Leave them be. Get a long extension (10-12") and near each side of the centerstand (if you still have one) you should be able to see the clamps from underneath/beside the bike. Loosen each of these.

Now, I've read from folks on the VF500F forum that many folks have a problem right about here in getting the OEM collector box to come off even if the clamps are well-loosened. Many have had success with spraying penetrating lubricant all over the short pipes and letting them sit overnight to dislodge them. Some have had luck with getting a short stick of stout wood about a foot long and 2-3" square and placing it on top of the collector box, hitting it, and repeating again on the opposite side of the bike to sort of "walk" it off from side to side. I was fully prepared for this to be a PITA, but the guy who had this bike before me must have taken really good care of it b/c mine came off with a little twisting action by hand.

Now look at the ends of the downtubes. If you see the little aluminum muffler gaskets still on the ends of the tubes (and you surely will), those need to come off in order to get the V&H full system on. I used a utility knife to cut them off from underneath, but you could also use a long flat screwdriver and tap/cut it off that way.

MOUNTING THE V&H:

Take the front header section only (we'll leave the actual canisters until this first part is mounted). Take a new exhaust gasket (you did get two new gaskets, right? They're cheap. Don't re-use.), put a little grease on them, and they'll stick right fine back in the exhaust ports without falling out when you're aligning the pipe onto the studs. Get a few threads on each nut to get it started, but no more.

Now, when you swivel the pipe underneath the bike to mount up with the downtubes, if it lines up, or even comes close to lining up, you're lucky. I wasn't. I used a prybar to pull the short vertical pipe in line with the downtube, and at the same time put a small bottle jack under the header to push it up. What you wanna do here is use the tension in the pipe to your advantage, that it: you don't wanna dent/bend/mangle the pipe and defeat it's flow characteristics, you just wanna slide them on and let the tension work to your advantage here. Use a little lubricant too if it helps. If you need to tap with a hammer on the bottom use a block of wood against the pipe to keep from denting it. For me, once I got everything lined up and started with the bottle jack pushing up on it, it all fell into place. Also, the V&H will bottom out on those downtubes before it gets to the taper mark on the downtubes...In other words, the V&H section that you're sliding on is SHORTER than the OEM pipes that came off, so the V&H won't slide up to the same mark on the downtubes as the OEM ones did. Mine was about 1/2" short. No worries....they both are off the same amount.

Still got those clamps you took off from the downtubes earlier? Good. Open them up, hit the bolt/nut threads with some lube, close it over the V&H, slide it up, grab your extension, turn the bolt head where you can reach it to make this easy should you decide to remove everything, and tighten a little till it stays up by itself without you holding it.

Go around to the front cylinders again, and tighten the nuts/. Might have to tap on the flange a little with a hammer if necessary to get it to slide snug. Tighten nuts. Tighten clamps fully underneath.

Repeat process for the other side/pipe. Leverage & bottle jack needed here as well.

Slide rear pieces of the pipes on after wrapping them with new fiberglass (I use masking tape to compress it nicely when sliding the AL can on.) In fact, my cans were junk, and found new AL identical diameter, cut to length for me, at a metals shop here in LA for a whopping $2.87 per can! They were raw, unshiny AL, but 30 m inutes per can with a buffing wheel turned them into a mirror! Best $6 spent for me in this whole process. The cans are 3" x 10" with a 1/16 thickness.

For me it looks like the V&H footpeg brackets are gonna line up on the outside of the footpegs (ie the bolt goes thru the V&H bracket first, then into the footpeg bracket hole) even though it looked like it would fit better on the inside of that bracket at first.

That's about it. Oh...do yourself a favor and start it once ( maybe a little bit of rev's?) before you slide the canisters on. Sit back and wait for the kids from the neighborhood to show up slack-jawed.

PS still working on something to allow me to keep the centerstand. Will post back with results. If you have a centerstand with this system, it hits the chain when it's up, so something needs to be done before riding it...

 

Thank you for the well written post.

If you have a chance to take a few detail photos, of the V&H system installed, this would be most appreciated.

 

Thanks bud. One of my canisters has a nice dent in it so you get a big thumbs up from me for providing the mesurements on replacements...

 

Yeah, those replacement cans was one of my best bike scores to date. The shop near me had the exact size in stock in 12' tubes, so they just cut it on the spot. The PO scuffed them/dented mine up pretty good, and for $6 you cannot go wrong. I got one of these kits from sears for cheap (http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_00928650000P?keyword=buffing+wheel), and it worked like a charm. It's got more shine on them now that they do when they're new from V&H. They are blinding now! I'll get some fotos in a bit...

 

Here's a few fotos after the install. Had to do a little "encouragement" on the left pipe to get it lined up with the hole in the footpeg, but it worked out OK.

OH...also got new V&H nametags. Cheap. $3 each with rivets. The original ones said "exhaust system" I think, but those are long gone thru V&H HQ. These work fine for me. Think I got an idea for the centerstand fix as well....gonna look for a thick rubber pad to attach to the bottom of the pipe itself. If not, I'll make a metal bracket to drop off the footpeg bracket (it's the straightest drop to the c'stand) or maybe something else.

 

Nice work & congratulations on the install!

What year is your bike?

 

I've got the 1985 flavor.

 

Good deal, you've got the larger 32mm bore carburetors then. Are you also thinking about going for a jet kit (aka Factory Pro) to dial things in?

 

Well...I'm not sure on that. The pipes came with a full carb bank from a 85 version as well. Whoever had this bike with the full V&H was running 90 main jets (OEM size) all around with Dynojet needles/clips in it and the OEM filter.

I know DJ specs the 94 main jets if you're running a full system and K&N.

I've dropped in a K&N and now the pipes, so I will need to do something I suppose. I know Jamie (and others here) and not fans of the DJ kits, so....I'm gonna ride it a bit and see how she acts before I decide what to do. I may install the DJ as a filler until I get the Factory kit, or I may get lucky and the free DJ kit may run fine. If anyone has first-hand experience with either, I'm all ears...

 

Good deal.

Please keep us posted on how the bike runs - and sounds ;-)

On a side note, I think you may be able to bump the main jets up a bit. For reference, the Factory Pro kit comes with #108 mains for the street (#112's for the track).

 

Looks great! Nice work.

 

Wonder why DJ goes with 94s, and Factory goes with 108s? That seems like a huge jump to me. Seems like someone's math is off...how can it be that big of difference for the same bike? B/c DJ drills the slide holes?

 

Yeah, not bad, eh? Now I just gotta do that full lower...

 

I agree, the Factory Pro main jet sizing is a bit curious – though I have read that this is the kit to get as these really dial things in without drilling.

Along with wondering about the big jump to #108's – Factory Pro does not include new emulsion tubes.

I have an '84 VF500F which has larger main jets (#102F/#105R) than the '85 (#90F/#90R) but along with the larger jets the ‘84 also has different emulsion tubes than the ’85.

Both the ’84 and ’85 share the larger 32mm bore (the ’86 having a 30mm bore) but Honda did change them up a bit downsizing the mains and changing the emulsion tubes from 1984 to 1985.

I haven’t read much about the Dynojet kits other than – apologies here – that they are ‘Dynojunk’ compared to the Factory Pro kit.

There is about 2 feet of snow here but hopefully it is warmer and drier where you are located. I am looking forward to reading how the V&H’s perform and what jets you end up with.

 

I wrote the tech @ Dynojet, and asked him about their jet size vs. Factory's jet size and why. I knew the answer to the 2nd part about plug & play vs. plug & play & repeat, but wanted to hear what he thought. Here's what I got back just now:

"Hey Mike-
Here's a question: You guys spec size 094 for the main jets, and the folks @ Factory spec jets that are much larger...either 108s or 112s for this same bike. Any idea why there's such a vast difference in main jet sizes? I know they don't drill slides either...maybe that has something to do with the difference? Just curious...

I haven't ridden it yet, but I'm wondering if I should be good to go without any other tweaking? Are these kits that precise that it's a "follow the instructions and it's perfect" kinda thing? Or "follow the instructions and it will get you CLOSE to perfection" kinda thing?"

His answer: "The Dynojet main jets are sized differently and the tip of the needle has a large affect on the main jet size, so you can not compare other jet kit to what we install. The jet kit should be very close if not right on. There maybe some minor adjustment needed if any."