Powder Coat on Aluminum fuel tank?

[Vandals909]

I have the option of having a fuel tank that is going under the bed of my 71 powder coated. If there any disadvantage to having it powder coated?

Will is not keep the fuel as cool with the aluminum being coated? I 'm just lazy and was thinking the powder would hold up better then continually polishing/cleaning the aluminum finish.

What do you guys think?

[Overdriven]

I assume you're worried about fuel temperature and the resulting vapor lock. What generally causes higher fuel temperatures is very high performance fuel pumps in extended street driving situations. The reason is because the pump is pumping and heating way more fuel than the engine can consume so the regulator dumps the hot(ter) fuel back into the tank only to be pumped and heated again. If you're under 600hp I'd say you have nothing to worry about unless you went overkill on the fuel pump. If you do have a very high performance fuel pump there are fuel pump controllers that slow down the pump in low demand situations to reduce the heating of the fuel.

Our trucks also have an advantage over other vehicles you may have heard vapor lock stories about. Most of those stories involve cars with plastic fuel cells in the trunk. A trunk is enclosed with no airflow and contains the heat. Plastic doesn't transfer heat as well as aluminum, even if the aluminum is powder coated.

Personally I'd probably powder coat the tank. The main reason being I'd hate to see what the tank would look like after a bunch of street miles and last thing I'd want to do is be cleaning and polishing it.

[SLY-C10]

I'm interested in doing this as well,