So I finally got on the horn today and phoned Scott USA/Acerbis...
Why today? Because I ran out of gas on my way into work - 9 litres into a 14 litre tank.

That's right, I still had 5 litres of gas in the tank and I had to flip over to reserve...
I've already learned my lesson that reserve doesn't get you far AT ALL.

So anyway, I basically have a 9 litre range, which is maybe 20% better than I had with the stock tank... I'm not too happy about that.

So the guy at Acerbis USA said he had never heard of the problem before - "not surprising" he said - "the KLX300 is not a popular machine"... (what?) He said all design and production happens over in Italy. I told him that I had already tried writing to Acerbis on their international website and got no response (surprise). He said that he would pass along my message of dis-satisfaction, but doubted that he would get any reply either. He's just a distributor after all.

Aaarg! Sorry, had to vent... So just in case you're missing the moral of the story here I DON'T recommend the Acerbis tank.

Another thing - when the bike falls over a certain way, the wings are rather susceptible to damage...
I already bent my left radiator and the mounting bracket for the left wing (on a very slow speed tip-over).

 

KW,

This reminds me of a question that I have been thinking about recently relative to the Acerbis tank. Where does the fuel line come out of the tank in order to draw fuel from both wings? I am guessing that there is a line coming from each wing that Y together to go to the petcock. Is that right?

Also, if you are interested I will make you a good deal on a nice black 1.9 gallon metal tank for that Acerbis jobby you have there? j/k - I like to think I am funny. Very few people share that opinion.

 

Good question Chris... Therein lies the problem... The petcock is situated in the middle part of the tank between the frame rails. The wings, as you can see, hang well below the frame rails on either side. Therefore, the gallon or so of gasoline that's sitting in the wings, below the frame rails, does not easily make it's way into the center section where the petcock is. If you rock and tip the bike, you get little splashes of gas to jump over into the middle, but that's obviously a ridiculous thing to have to do...

 

I wondered if it was like that, and then I thought that surely I must be mistaken. Guess not. Sorry to hear that it is not working out. Maybe you can just look at it like it is a built in "super reserve". At least you know that you won't ever really run out of gas, even if you have to tip the bike a time or two.

I realize that this is not ideal, but I am looking for a silver lining for your cloud.

Chris

 

thats why im gonna stick with the stock tank, dont like the looks of the acerbis tank, and i dont like the idea of doing all the mods for the ims tank, for how i ride the stock is fine for me...

 

That's really strange that your tank is hitting reserve with so much left. I've only hit my reserve once at 180 miles, then went another 5 or so on reserve and filled up around 2.9 gallons I think. I've had up around 170 miles a couple times since then. So I'm able to use somewhere around 3 gallons before it runs out with only the gas left in the wings, which is about 80% of the capacity. But yours is only using around 65%. one thing I noticed when I installed it, Acerbis' instructions said something about installing the spacer from the original tank. I didn't put it in because it looked like it would raised the petcock higher so I wouldn't be able to use as much of the gas before hitting eserve. Picture of the spacer I'm talking about is below. If you put this in, try taking it out and see if it helps.

 

That's interesting... The spacer that I got has no rubber grommet around it... It's simply a metal collar - maybe 3/8" wide and about 1.5" long that slips into the hole in the tank... It's pretty much a necessity from what I can see, without it, the bolt that goes in there would fit rather sloppy, and could potentially crush the plastic if overtightened. I can't imagine what that big piece of rubber is for that you show in your picture...??

 

The collar was from the inner part of the rubber from the bottom of the stock tank. Here's what my acerbis looks like under the seat:



I put the rubber bumper/spacer back on the stock tank. Here's what it looks like coming off the bike:

 

Fear not! Having done two IMS conversions now, I can talk you through that in a couple of hours of work. You only have to make two minor mods that can't be undone easily - the removal of two tiny hooks that extend from the frame that hold the wire harness in place. Both of these are totally unecessary if you should ever want to go back to stock (but why would you?).

 

dont you have to also get rid of the stock cooling fan?