Things have come a long ways since the days when the fuel tank was in the front under the hood or in the back behind the seat. Centering the fuel tank on the tunnel was the best idea. It centers the overall mass of the sled and makes shifting weight less noticeable as the fuel is depleted. I can get into the center-mass technical stuff at another time. Suffice it to say that the gas tank/seat arrangement hasn’t changed much over the years, until now. Ski-Doo changed our thinking about fuel tanks last year and Polaris followed suit this year.

Both companies have positioned their seats on top of the fuel tank, rather than mounting their seats directly to the tunnel. This spreads the weight of the fuel lower and flatter across the tunnel. Polaris improved their fuel tank for 2009 and it sits more below the seat to help distribute the weight of the fuel better. Ski-Doo did this last year on the XP chassis and the tank actually becomes part of the seat suspension as well; that is the most important part. Polaris did the same, but added a bar to the rear of the seat that mounts to the tunnel. Either way, putting that extra cushion between the tunnel and seat offers a plusher ride and less harshness felt from the rear suspension.

One neat thing that the Polaris seat offers is that you could conceivably add height to the seat by adding spacers between the bar and the tunnel. That’s something we will try this season.