Gents, Appreciate if someone knowledgable could confirm whether the 2010 plastics will fit the 2009 bikes (ie red tank shrouds & side panels). I have a TE 450 09 model. Getting sick of peeling stickers.... Cheers G
I am told yes. I bought a pair of the 2010 tank plastics and they are really nice. Too nice. I am not trusting myself to keep them looking new. I tend to collect a lot of manzanita effects on them. I got the stickers fully off my 2009 TE 310 tank plastics and used some goof-off to remove the glue. They look pretty good with no stickers. The new plastics will go on after the next guy asks me why the pipe is on the wrong side of my honda. -Sean
2010 plastics on 2009 bike I got bored today an put the 2010 tank shrouds on my 2009 TE310. They fit perfectly.
The new plastics get the graphics applied during h molding process. This is known as in-mold-decoration to most, but in the industry, the generally accepted term for this process is I.L.M or in-mold-labeling. The graphics will last much longer and also, will take about 1 pound off the weight of the bike. Some race teams (like James Stuarts' sponsors) order their graphics and plastics done this way direct from Cycra. ALL the graphics are hand-inserted into the mold before it closes, when the plastic is injected, the graphics are pushed against the cavity wall and subjected to about 17,000 psi. When the part comes out, the graphics are as stuck on as graphics can be and have a super glossy finish which results from the heat and pressure. They do this for each and every part that gets graphics on it. When you're talking about fenders, shrouds, side panels and front #plates, this saves about 3.5lbs over a regular stick-on graphics kit. Even the numbers are printed right onto the backgrounds just like normal. This is a custom job and most of the teams doing it order 5 or 5 sets at the time. Anyone can have this done for their bike as well, but you're talking somewhere in the $800/set range. Most of that price (99.99%) is set-up and run time for the machine, and since this is such a custom deal, it requires and operator standing at the machine sticking the graphics labels in to the mold every time it opens. There is very little material cost involved with PP. A full set of moto plastics is about $4 worth of PP and the graphics cost are negligible as well, but they would never admit that. Real cost to print the labeling (graphics) is about $8 and that is mostly the cost of the ink. When I heard Husky was doing this for 2010, I wondered why it took someone soo long to think of doing this on factory dirtbike. Teams have been doing it for a couple of years.
Funny, I thought $88 was cheap. How much for new decals alone? Let alone the hassle of installing decals. I'm sold on '10 shrouds
Can't get the 2010 decals without the shrouds. They are applied during the molding process. That is why they have gone up in price some. Gotta buy the whole thing to get the graphics...
