Heat is your enemy. One way to decrease the heat in your motor is to increase the capacity of your oil system. Since the motor in Project Raptor is no longer in stock form we figure it is producing more heat than it did from the factory and could use some extra cooling. CFM Performance came to the rescue with their new high capacity oil tank. Located in Fostoria Michigan, about 60 miles north of Detroit The CFM performance oil tank increases the capacity of your oil tank by an extra quart. The oil tank is built with 5052 series aluminum for a mixture of strength and corrosion resistance. The tank has precision machined 6061-T651 fittings and are all welded in a fixture for perfect fitment.

Installation

No directions are included but none are really needed as the installation is pretty straight forward. You need to first drain the oil out of your stock oil tank and then disconnect the oil lines from top and bottom. Two bolts later and your stock tank is outta there.

Factory Oil Tank from left side.

Factory oil tank from right side.

After moving the rubber fittings from the old tank to the new CFM tank we were ready to install and ran into our first little hitch. The new tank would not fit into he proper spot no matter how I tried it. The GYT-R header was in the way. If you have a stock Raptor header you probably will not have this problem. So off came the silencer and header. Hitch #2. Now the new tank hit the Hyper Pro steering damper. We tried a number of different arrangements on the damper but we could NOT fit both the damper and new high capacity tank at the same time. Off came the damper.

New CFM Tank on the left and factory tank on the right.

Lots of room with header removed.

With damper and header out of the way the stock lines bolted right up to the new tank and the factory drain plug and dip stick fit the CFM tank. Next we filled the Raptor up with oil and re-installed the GYT-R header and silencer. We were off to the races. Hint: Don't install new parts the night before a race. Yeah, we should know better!

We showed up in Arizona at the Whiplash race just in time for the practice lap. Everything went ok although we sure were missing our Hyperpro Damper. When checking the bike we immediately noticed quite a bit of oil had leaked. We found the oil was coming from the bottom oil line. Again, not putting alot of thought into it we thought we must not have tightened the two bolts on the bottom line tight enough. We then proceeded to strip one of the bolts which mount into aluminum. Yes, STUPID move.

CFM Performance Tank in action.

Very small pinhole leak around the weld. All new tanks will now be pressure checked.

Long story short - the oil line was tight enough with one bolt stripped, so the Raptor was only losing a small amount of oil and was still well above the low mark at the end of the race. Back at home I contacted CFM and told them of the issue and also about a very small pinhole leak around one of the welds. They were very concerned and wanted to make it right. They wanted the unit back to repair and investigate. While tank was in transit I was doing a little Internet research and discovered what was causing my oil leak in the first place. It was not because I had not tightened the fitting tight enough, and it was NOT because of a poor fitting. The leak was actually coming from around the threads of the bolts as the fitting is tapped all the way through into the tank. A little thread sealant applied to the bolts would have cured my problem.

With the tank repaired and back in our hands we reinstalled it. CFM has said they are now going to pressure check every unit to make sure no pinhole leaks exist. This time we used some thread sealant on the bottom oil line and have had no leakage.

Steering damper note: We have found the Denton steering stabilizer DOES fit with the larger oil tank and you could also use a bar mounted stabilizer like the GPR unit, but unfortunately the Hyper Pro damper will not fit.
Summary

While the tank installation did turn into a small ordeal we are very happy with the extra capacity of the new tank. CFM will be pressure checking all units in the future so you should not have any pinhole leaks like we discovered. If you use a little thread sealant when mounting the bottom line you should have no problems there. If you learn from our lessons we think you will be happy with your new CFM performance oil tank. At $159.95 the price is very reasonble compared to other units on the market.

CFM Performance
7350 N. Lapeer Rd.
Fstoria, MI 48435
Phone (989)795-2550
Fax (989)795-2590
www.cfmracing.com

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