Description
7-12-23 update: Kits are in stock, In a recent move, we lostthe box of lockring tools. Removed from kit and adjusted price accordingly. More are on order…I’d suggest the HD tool for now.
Price increase due to raw plastic and steel being up 300%! Sorry, but this is beyond our control. $599 while in preorder, it’ll be $699 once the preorder is over.
The V-Rod is a great motorcycle capable of so many different styles of riding. However, the small tank on the V-Rod has always been a bone of contention among owners.
I have run out of fuel several times and know all too well that pushing a 600+ lb V-Rod is no fun task. I’ve yet to put more than 3.4 gallons back in which seems to be the real pumpable capacity of the stock tank. A couple of these times were in dangerous places where I felt very much at risk, like the Interstate on the South Side of Atlanta at 1am. I pushed the beast 5 miles that night, I sure wasn’t leaving it. Another time on alligator alley in Florida, talk about being in the middle of nowhere. When traveling in areas where I didn’t know the next gas station, I might stop at every one I see (once you’ve pushed the V-Rod for miles late at night your perspective and fear point on low fuel change radically.)
Returning from my 2004 November & December 2500 mile adventure (where I’d run out of gas a couple times) I was determined to make a new tank for the V-rod. And today we have a 5.3 Gallon (20 liter) tank that everyone can install.
Features:
Made in America by Americans for your American motorcycle.
5.3 US Gallons (20 Liters) after normalization*. This will yield approximately 5 1/4 gallons of useable fuel capacity which is a 54% increase over stock useable of 3.4 gallons – almost 2 gallons.
State of the art molding process gives unparalleled safety. The crash testing lab performed tests to American and European safety standards. The tank passed easily. They were instructed to increase the forces until the tank failed. They were unable to achieve a failure even when hitting the tank with many times the force set forth in the standards – they maxed out their equipment without failure.
Relocates the ignition out from under your butt to an easy to reach and much more natural position for the key.
Included parts to stop the key fob from flapping in the wind.
Retains normal operation of the ignition and seat latch.
Designed to fit 2002-2006 VRSCA, B, D, SE and SE2 models.
Included in the kit:
- SuperTank
- Tank Strap
- NASCAR developed thermal barrier
- Ignition Relocation kit
- Ignition bracket
- Ignition wire harness extension
- Extended seat release cable
- misc hardware
- Skid Plate kit
- Formed skid plate
- Aluminum Rivets
- 3/16″ drill bit
- Misc hardware
- Detailed installation instructions
Installation:
Install is pretty straight forward. Someone who’s done a few can accomplish the job in 2-3 hours. A first time do-it-yourselfer can easily accomplish the task in a weekend. We’ve had numerous male and female users with little or no mechanical experience complete the installation without difficulty.
There are detailed instructions.
Emissions, EPA, CARB, TUV:
It’s received the blessing of the EPA and is legal everywhere in the USA except California.
CARB & TUV approvals are next on the task list, for now it’ll be listed as “not for use in California on pollution controlled vehicles”.
Support:
We have 24/7/365 support in our support forum where you will not only have access to the company owner, the designer, shipping & receiving, but also others who have done this install on their own bikes. These are people with a wide range of abilities and even other languages. You will also find a gallery of installs where you can see first hand what others have done.
Modifications to stock equipment:
The stock frame may (or may not) have sharp items sticking out into the tank area. These could be drippy weld excess, leftover mig wire and splatter. The tank will fit without modification and it’s very doubtful that even the worst of these could actually puncture the tank, but good sense says that you don’t want to leave these sharp items in potential contact with your new tank that’s holding a flammable liquid. A file or dremel and a little touchup paint and a few minutes of your time is all that’s needed to create a smooth bed for your new tank to lay in.
Bend the stock skid flat and install the skid extension. NO cutting is necessary.
Use a heat gun to slightly reform the stock mudflap.
Saddle bag supports need the frontmost hole countersunk and replace the hex head bolt with a flat head. (if still in use and many people remove these). ’06 SE2 needs a little more modification to the saddlebag support, contact us for more information.
Shipping & delivery:
The box going to be pretty large, I’m currently estimating freight at $55 for FedEx Express 3 day service in the US48 and $20 for ground which we’ll use as a flat rate for now. If you are outside the US48 please contact us on shipping costs. The website will not automatically calculate shipping outside the US.
International customers can NOT use a credit card. I’m sorry about this, but it’s the way it is with international credit card rules & regs being what they are. Western Union, Bank Drafts, Money Orders and Wire Transfer.
Absolutely NO PayPal. For a few thousand reasons why go to www.nopaypal.com.
Known compatible items. The following is brief list of items that have tested and are known to work. This will grow over time and we’ll be updating it as we get reports on items that work.
Seats
All the HD seats
Corbin Dual Tour
Swingarms
Stock
Modified stock (pushed left for wide tire fitment)
CFR swingarm
Tires
Kit has been tested with everything from stock up to 250 and we don’t anticipate any problems with tires larger than 250.
Shocks
All shocks should fit. The limiting factor is the collapsed length which should be the same on all V-Rod shocks = 10.4″, however even if it collapses more, the tire will hit the frame before it hits the tank.
Decorative
HD’s chrome side cover 66310-02 or 66316-04DH or 66357-04 (need to trim tabs down a little) and chrome button 51636-06
HD’s frame bag kit 94204-03A. image
Known incompatibilities. Getting 5.25 gallons in the same space as the stock 3.4 tank is no easy trick. Obviously some aftermarket items that deviate from stock will not be compatible. We’ll list these as we learn of them. If you can’t get it to fit your bike for some reason you may return it for a refund in exchange for documenting the incompatibility (words & pictures) so that we can add it to the list.
Right rear passenger footpeg mount on VRSCD models. We have two solutions.
If you are running an aftermarket pipe you can switch to the A, B, SE model footpeg mounts. This will move your passenger’s feet down and forward for which your passenger will thank you greatly since it’s a much more comfortable location for her feet.
A newly designed mount and exhaust hanger for stock bikes is in the works.
HD’s passenger floorboards. The mounts are weird and are very different from the A, B, SE mounts which the tank was designed for. I studied this for a customer and it appears that a small notch could be cut in the right side mount to clear the tank.
Kuryakyn™ Passenger Peg Mounts.
Turbos & Superchargers that use the space where we put the ignition. There are alternatives like HD’s up front key location and the keyless mod (use the alarm to activate the bike.)
Warranty. 1 year on parts for manufacturing defects to the original purchaser.
Lockring Tool.
This is the UE-2050 tig welded stainless steel tool we designed and manufactured to remove the big threaded ring on the top of the tank that holds the sending unit in. You need something like this to remove the threaded ring and also to reinstall it and torque to recommended specification of 40-45 ft-lbs. You may be able to get the HD one locally, borrow it, or use an alternate tool to do this, but you need to ensure that you can properly torque the lockring.
RevB of the tank kit, we have updated the kit in several ways to make installation easier.
The item which is probably of biggest interest is the reduction of height. The original (RevA) kit is 12mm (less than 1/2″) taller than stock. We’ve reduced this by 6mm. The benefits of this are
No need to modify the sending unit
greater clearance between the top of the tank and underside seatpan
more clearance at the cap,
more clearance at the fuel lines, with RevB there is approximately 3/16″ of clearance between the top of the fuel line connectors and the top of the frame.
• 2″ more length on the ignition extension wires (which plug in, you don’t cut anything),
• change to aluminum rivets (to make install with cheep rivet guns easier.) The stainless rivets are available on request.
• modified the tooling on the skidplate to wrap it more fully around the frame
• Ignition bracket has been modified to cover the wires more making it more tamper resistant.
While the original was very easy to install, these little changes should make installation even easier.
Feel free to ask questions, we’ll expand on this page as need be.
Q&A
Q: When will it be available?
A: It’s available now. We are in steady production. While there may be fluctuations in availability due to demand, we should be able to fill orders quickly.
Q: Will it fit the VSRCR?
A: No.
Q: What about governmental regulations?
A: The system is designed to meet all governmental regulations. It’s received the US EPA’s blessing. CARB and TUV are next.
Q: Where is it made?
A: Start to finish entirely Made in America
Q: Will the fuel gauge be more erratic with this?
A: No, the erraticness of the sending unit won’t get worse. If anything, it’ll improve since you’ll have the opportunity while installing this to clean the sensor strip. There is greater volume at the bottom of the tank than stock so you’ll have quite a bit more range when your fuel gauge reads 1/4 and below than you did with the stock tank.
Q: I see you are changing the skid plate and extending it, will I have to weld it in place?
A: No. We will offer two different skids. The default one will be a rivet in skid plate. We will also offer a weld in replacement for people doing frame out work.
Q: Will I have to make extensive frame modifications?
A: No. I’m seeing a lot of griping about this part of the install and IMHO it’s getting blown out of proportion. Based on what we’ve seen in the installation trials the new tank will fit right in without any further modifications. However, it is possible that the space you are putting it into has some very rough sharp points (mig wire, splatter and drippy welds.) Add in some vibration (you can see where the stock tank has chaffed the paint off) and common sense says that you don’t want these sharp pokey things ever touching or rubbing your new tank that’s holding a flammable liquid. Later (’04+) frame years were greatly improved in this area, but the early models (’02-’03) can be a little, shall we say: ‘rough’. I like to think of this of this part of the installation like making a nice smooth bed for the new tank to lie in. Is it required? NO. The tank will fit w/o. I highly doubt that even the worst of these could ever pierce the tank, but still, I think it only makes sense to smooth out any rough spots. However, as the installer you can certainly choose to ignore our recommendations. Should you choose to do it as recommended the process is very easy and while it’s true you’ll break the painted surface, the places you do so will be completely hidden by the new tank and a little touchup paint will prevent any rust. If it were me I’d smooth it out no matter what tank I put in there.
Q: What about safety? Harley couldn’t do it without changing the bike.
A: You are confusing decisions made by the bean counters to keep costs down with what the system is capable of. The process we are using is much more expensive than the OEM part, making it unsuitable for Harley because of cost, not safety.
Q: What about the California Carbon Canister? Those of us in CA have to keep this to stay legal.
A: We use the space where this is currently for fuel, the Carbon Canister will have to be relocated. We will offer a bracket to do so.
Q: Will it work with the alarm & siren?
A: Yes. The alarm stays in the stock location and the siren is relocated but the wires are plenty long enough and there’s space for it.
Q: Will it work with Phat tires, that is: 240s, 250s, 300s and beyond?
A: Yes, my bike has a 250 and it works fine. Should fit any size tire.
Q: Will it work with models that have a seat release button (ignition isn’t in the tank area.)
A: Yes, It’s the same as an ignition, just without the switch. So it will work by relocating the button with the ignition relocation kit.
Q: What about dealers? Will they have access to this kit? What about international?
A: Yes, we are developing a dealer network.
Q: Can ’07 tanks fit the pre-’07 frames? Can this tank fit the ‘07s and later?
A: No, HD made changes to the frame and they are not compatible in either direction, this tanks for ’02-’06 only (should fit all excluding the VSRCR.)
Q: Will installation of this tank affect my warranty?
A: No, I can’t imagine any way that it could – see the Magnuson-Moss act.
*Normalization: The tank will expand with exposure to gasoline. That’s one of the properties of the material. We have to plan for this in the design or it’d never come out again so we design it a little smaller than what the final size is expected to be.
The latest measurement was done by weight which is about as accurate as we can get. A brand new RevA tank measured out at 5.04 gal and the one that was in my bike from September to early December (in there about 80 days) measured at 5.35 gal. The 5 & 4.9 numbers were the day after it was first exposed in September.
We lose about 1/10th of a gallon to the pump & sending unit and airspace at the top.
That’s how we get 5.25 gallons of usable fuel after normalization.
According to studies that have been done it should do 90% of it’s growth in the first 90 days and stabilize around 120 days.
The one with 80 days of exposure measures almost exactly what the computer predicted it would be.
Bear in mind it is plastic and plastic changes with temperature so you can expect it to hold slightly more in the heat of summer and slightly less in the cold of winter.
The above measurements were taken at room temperature, 70°F.
A brand new tank measures 5.13 gal with initial usable capacity of 5.04 gal. We expect the same growth with the RevBs which should yield somewhere in the 5 1/4 usable gallons. We’ll update this after 3-4 months.
