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My guess is that the area in the tank where the pump attaches would need considerable reinforcement to keep the weight of the pump from cracking the plastic or breaking the seal between tank and pump. The extra plastic needed to do this was probably more weight than going with aluminum.
Also, I'm kinda surprized that no-one really appreciates how trick, and...Indeed!, "Works" an Aluminum tank is.
Something-else, why is it that Suzuki never really seems to get the Cred they deserve, nowadays?
Injection? 1st.
Single-shock rear-suspension that REALLY works? 1st (The orignal "Full-Floater" was amazing).
While I am simply amazed at the new Honda (Once you get the suspension right! And...toss out the stock Header! Hey, Honda, this ain't the '80s, ya know?)...I need to spend sometime on the Zook...
I'm hearing really good things about it from some of their new-crew.
The Shop
Luxon 4-Post Bar Mounts
$189.95 - $239.95
DeCal Works Huge Plastic Inventory of UFO and Polisport kits.
In order to support the pump, a plastic tank would have to be rather beefy compared to a carbureted plastic tank. This is not to say it is not possible.
Plastic will always be MUCH cheaper than any metal to manufacture, especially as a tank. I bet this tank is many times more expensive to produce than an equivalent plastic tank.
My .02 says Suzuki did this purely for marketing, just like Honda first did the aluminum frame in 97. Steel frames are lighter, cheaper, and feel better. They are on bikes for one reason, the public perceives them as better.
If they have it set up any different , its a fucked up system. Wouldn't surprise me though in motocross.
Suzukis had EFI for about 12 years.
The full floater was bad ass.
1: it has zero to do with EFI....pretty much. at one point it was kinda needed since they bolted the efi unit to the tank and needed more rigidity or strength but that has turned out to be not true. and the tank is not and has never been pressurized.
2: it is mainly to do with tank design and volume since some of the stock tanks had a tendency to run out of gas on a 35 min moto. with a custom Al tank they can design and engineer a more precise tank to fit better over/into the very small area between the frame twin spars on the rmz's and get as much as an extra half liter to a liter more for fuel capacity.
3: there you have it.
ot: here's a cool pic of an rm450 motor.
There is plenty of space between the frame, engine, and tank on an 08-09 RMZ450, they didn't have to push the limits of space to eek out capacity.
The tank is smaller than last year, around a gallon and a half.
They did this for marketing.
I am an engineer and any production engineer worth his while would have done a QFD diagram to select a tank material. Plastic wins in every category except for the marketing "guru" who thought the extra $$ was justified for a "works" part.
The only other thing I could think of is that a plastic tank would have to be rather thick to support the pump, so with a thinner aluminum tank you could maintain a small external tank volume while having the same internal capacity. Again, this is unlikely because there is space to expand the tank.
Pit Row
and yes kawboy doesn't no shit either....
Honda Worldwide : Honda Motor Co.,Ltd.
guess honda makes electric motors doofus.
The emissions thing makes no sense to me because there are SO many DOT vehicles that have plastic tanks. It also makes no sense because motocross bikes use an open vent with no charcoal canister or vapor recovery/treatment system. So I think I am gonna call BS on the EPA being the reason for it also.
I think the aluminum tank is cool, and I like having it on my bike, but this definitely wasn't a decision driven by engineering, such as the material for a gear or the size of an intake port. Marketing is a big factor in certain decisions on products driven by consumer purchases, and in this case, I believe Suzuki felt it was important from a sales standpoint to have a "bling" tank.
The cost on this tank has to be 10's of times higher than the plastic tanks, for tooling, materials, construction, and after treatment (it appears to me that the tank is hard coated also). It blows my mind that a Japanese engineering firm, and remember that the Japanese are famous for penny pinching and being excellent engineers, okayed an aluminum tank for a production MX bike.
Most cars today use plastic tanks, RV fluid tanks are plastic, some home oil tanks are plastic. It doesn't take any engineering knowledge to figure out that there is no reason for the aluminum tank other than the bling factor. All it takes is a little bit of a filter to not believe everything written on the net and in magazines.
Maybe I am missing some really odd reason this was done from an engineering standpoint, but given the simplicity of what the tank's design constraints are, I highly doubt it
Not saying it is a bad thing Suzuki has the aluminum tank either because obviously Suzuki has kept the price of the bike in line or lower than the other equivalent bikes.
Sure I don't know shit about this?
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