My gaskets came yesterday. I was so happy, but I had company, so I couldn’t do anything with them until today.

So… I removed the old pipes, looked at the new ones and noticed that they didn’t have anything that would stop me from shoving the gasket right down the middle, and opted to put them on the pipes first instead.

Oh fuck me… bad move.

Turns out… the gaskets (both the stock ones and the genuine Yamaha replacements I just got) are larger in diamater than the outside of the new pipes. There’s no damn way to get the new Cobra slash cut pipes on over them. Insult to injury… I can’t get the gaskets off my header pipes without cutting them (and thereby ruining them).

See the images below for a better idea of wtf is going on:

The new Cobra pipe (foreground) and stock Yamaha pipe (background)

The Cobra pipe and a gasket

The Cobra on the left and Yamaha on the right (I could slip the cobra into my old pipe!)

I emailed Cobra on this to see if they have some magic solution… but I have the feeling that I’m going to be pulling out a razor knife, hacking up two of the gaskets that I waited 12 days for (and spent money on), reinstalling my old pipes, and having a lovely set of rather expensive slash cut pipes that won’t fit my bike.

Fuck.